Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
==============================================
V.I. Lenin

Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1906/rucong/index.htm


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
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------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
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A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Comrades, you elected me your delegate to the Unity Congress of the
      R.S.D.L.P. As I am unable to come to St. Petersburg at present, permit me
      to send my report in writing and, in passing, to express a few ideas on
      the Congress.

Before proceeding with the subject, I must make an important reservation. It is
quite impossible for me to remember in detail everything that happened at the
Congress, at which there were one hundred and twenty or more delegates, and
which held about thirty sessions.Being a member of the Bureau of the Congress,
and one of the chairmen, and a member of several committees in addition, I was
unable to take notes during the sessions. One cannot entirely trust one s memory
without notes. Besides, being absent from the hall while engaged in work in
committees, or for casual or personal reasons, I did not witness a number of
episodes at the Congress, nor did I hear all the speeches. The experience of
previous congresses (the Second and the Third), which were attended by fewer
delegates, has convinced me that, even if one pays the closest attention to the
proceedings, one cannot draw an exact picture of the congress from memory. When
the minutes of the Second and Third Congresses appeared, I read them as if they
were new books, although I my self was present at those congresses; for these
books really provided me with much new material and compelled me to re vise a
number of inexact or incomplete personal impressions. Therefore I earnestly
request you to bear in mind that this letter is only a rough outline of a
report, subject, at all events, to correction on the basis of the minutes of the
Congress.


I
~


The Composition of the Congress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I will start with the general composition of the Congress. As you know,
delegates with the right to vote were elected on the basis of one per 300 Party
members. There were in all about 110 such delegates—at the beginning of
the Congress, I think, slightly less (not all had arrived); at the close there
were as many as 113. Delegates with a consultative voice were the 5 editors of
the Central Organ (3 from the “Minority” and 2 from the
“Majority”, for you had given me a full mandate) and five, if I am
not mistaken, members of the Joint Central Committee. Then also, there were
delegates with consultative voice from organisations who had not been granted
full mandates, and several persons who had been especially invited to the
Congress (two members of the “Agrarian Committee”, Plekhanov and
Axelrod, Comrade Akimov, and several others). There were also several
consultative delegates from large organisations having over 900 members (from
St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Southern regional organisation, and
others). Lastly, there were consultative delegates representing the national
Social-Democratic parties: three each from the Polish Social-Democratic Party,
the Lettish Social-Democratic and the Jewish organisation (the Bund), and one
from the Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party (it appears that this is the
name that the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party [1] adopted at its last
conference). Thus there were 30 delegates, or a little more, with a
consultative voice. The total number present was therefore not 120, but over 140.

Taken according to their “trend” in relation to the tactical
platforms, or their factional position, if you will, the delegates with the
right to vote were divided approximately as follows: 62 Mensheviks and 46
Bolsheviks. At all events, these are the figures that impressed themselves most
on my mind during the numerous “factional” votes that took place at
the Congress. Some of the delegates, of course, were indefinite, or wavered on
certain questions; these were what in parliamentary language are called the
“Centre”, or the “Marsh”. This “Centre” was
very feeble at the Congress, although a number of comrades whom I have grouped with the Mensheviks according to the voting, claimed to be
“conciliators”, or the “Centre”. Of all the more or less
important votes that were taken at the Congress, I remember only one (that on
the question of the Bund’s affiliation to the Party) in which these
“Menshevik conciliators” did not vote on factional lines. With this
vote, in which, as far as I remember, the definitely factional Mensheviks were
beaten by a majority of 59, I will deal in detail later on.

Thus, 62 and 46. The Congress was a Menshevik congress. The Mensheviks had a
solid and safe majority, which enabled them to come to terms with one another
beforehand and thus predetermine the decisions of the Congress. Strictly
speaking, these private arrangements at factional meetings are quite natural
when there is a definite and compact majority; and when several delegates,
particularly those from the so-called Centre, complained about this, I said in
conversation with the delegates that it was “the Centre complaining about
its own weakness”. Attempts were made at the Congress to raise the
question of these factional meetings, but it was dropped, for it turned out that
the factions had become closely welded just the same, and it became possible to
allow outsiders to attend the factional meetings, to allow them to become
“open” meetings. Towards the close of the Congress, for example, the
question of the composition of the Central Committee was virtually decided, as
will be seen later on, not by the voting in open Congress, but simply by an
“agree ment” between the factions. I will not pass any opinion on
this; and I think it is useless bewailing it, because it is absolutely
inevitable so long as the old factional divisions exist.

As regards divisions within the factions, I will note that they were marked only
on the agrarian question (a section of the Mensheviks were opposed to
municipalisation, while the Bolsheviks were divided into
“Rozhkovists”—that is, those who advocated the division of the
land—and the advocates of confiscation, with nationalisation in the event
of a republic being established); and on the question of the affiliation of the
Bund. Further, a striking thing was the complete absence among the Mensheviks of
the trend that was so clearly revealed in Nachalo , and which in the
Party we are accustomed to connect with the names of Comrades Parvus and
Trotsky. True, it is quite possible that there were some “Parvusites” and “Trotskyites” among the
      Mensheviks— I was told that there were about eight of
      them—but, owing to the removal from the agenda of the question of
      the provisional revolutionary government, they had no opportunity of
      making a show. It is probable, however, that in view of the general turn
      that the Mensheviks made at the Congress towards Plekhanov, with whose Dnevnik they had disagreed before the Congress, the
    “Parvusites” also took a step to the right. I remember only one
    episode in which, perhaps, the “Parvusites” among the
    Mensheviks made them all slightly change their attitude. It was an incident
    over the question of armed uprising. Plekhanov, the chairman of the
    committee, had altered the original Menshevik resolution, and instead of
    “wrest power” (this part of the resolution concerned the aims of
    the movement) inserted “wrest rights by force” (or
    “capture rights”—I don’t quite remember which). The
    opportunism of this
    alteration was so glaring that the most heated protests were raised against
    it in open Congress.We attacked the alteration with redoubled vigour. The
    ranks of the Mensheviks wavered. I do not know exactly whether any
    factional meetings had been held, or what took place at them if
    they were; nor can
    I vouch for the truth of the statement made to me that ten Mensheviks who
    were inclined towards “Parvusism” had emphatically declared
    their disagreement with the alteration. The fact is that, after the debates
    in open Congress, Plekhanov himself withdrew the alteration and did not
    allow it to be put to a vote; did this on the pretext (a skilful piece of
    diplomacy, perhaps, but it raised a smile) that it was not worth arguing
    about questions of “style”.

Lastly, to finish with the composition of the Congress, I will say something
about the Credentials Committee (the committee which scrutinised the credentials
of the delegates). There were two such committees, for the first one elected by
the Congress resigned in a body. [2] This was a most
extraordinary affair, and had never occurred at previous congresses. At all
events, it was evidence of some thing extremely abnormal in the work of
scrutinising the credentials. I remember that the chairman of the first
committee was a conciliator, who at first had the confidence of our faction,
too. But since he proved unable to weld his committee together, and since he and
the whole committee were compelled to resign, it shows that this conciliator was unable to
conciliate. The details of the fight at the Congress over the reports of the
Credentials Committee have escaped my attention most of all. The fight was often
a very heated one, Bolshevik credentials were annulled, passions rose, and
things reached their climax with the resignation of the first committee; but I
was not in the hall at that time. I remember yet another, evidently fairly big,
incident over this work of determining the composition of the Congress. It was a
protest sent by a number of workers in Tiflis (about 200, I think) against the
mandate of the Tiflis delegation, which consisted almost entirely of Mensheviks
and was extra ordinarily large, with as many as eleven members, I think. The
protest was read at the Congress and should therefore appear in the
minutes. [3]

The record of the proceedings of the Credentials Committees should also appear
in the minutes, that is, if the committees have performed their
functions at all carefully, and have drawn up proper reports on the scrutiny of
the credentials and of all the elections for the Congress. Whether they have
done this, and whether the reports will appear in the minutes, I cannot say. If
not, it will prove beyond doubt that the committees have not performed their
functions with the necessary care and attention. If the reports do appear in the
minutes, then I may have to correct a great deal of what I have said above, for
on a question like this, which is not one of principle, but a purely concrete
and practical question, it is particularly easy to make mistakes in forming
general impressions, and it is particularly important care fully to study the
records.

Incidentally, to finish with all the formalities and to proceed with the more
interesting questions of principle, I will say something about the minutes. I am
afraid that in this respect, too, the Congress will prove to be less
satisfactory than the Second and Third Congresses. At both the
previous congresses the
minutes were adopted in their entirety by the Congress. At the Unity Congress
the secretaries, for the first time, proved to be so inefficient, there was
such a hurry to finish the Congress (in spite of the fact that a number of
extremely important questions had been with drawn from the agenda), that not
all the minutes were passed by the Congress. The Minutes Committee (consisting of two Mensheviks and
      two Bolsheviks) was given unprecedentedly wide and indefinite powers: to
      adopt the unfinished minutes. In the event of disagreement, it is to
      appeal to the Congress delegates who are in St. Petersburg. All this is
      very deplorable. I am afraid that we shall not get as good minutes as we
      have of the Second and Third Congresses. True, we had two stenographers,
      and some of the speeches are reported almost verbatim, and not in the form
      of condensed reports, as was the case in the past; but a complete
      verbatim report of the debates at the Congress cannot be expected, for
      this was more than the two stenographers could cope with, as they informed
      the Congress more than once. As chairman, I strongly insisted that the
      secretaries should at least make good condensed reports of the speeches,
      even if very brief. Let the verbatim reports of some of the speeches, I
      said, be a sort of supplement deluxe to the minutes; but it was
      essential to have the basis—not some of the speeches, but all the
      speeches without exception, at least in the form of condensed
      reports. [4]


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Notes
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[1] Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (R.U.P.)—a
petty-bourgeois, nationalist organisation founded early in 1900. In December
1905, it renamed itself the

Ukrainian Social-Democratic Labour Party (U.S.D.L.P.),

and decided to join the R.S.D.L.P., provided it was recognised as
“the sole representative of the Ukrainian proletariat”, within the
R.S.D.L.P. The Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. rejected the proposal
which the U.S.D.L.P. spokesman had made for the immediate discussion of the
terms of a merger, and referred the matter to the Central Committee for
decision. No agreement was reached on a merger. Subsequently the
U.S.D.L.P. found itself in the camp of the bourgeois-nationalist
counter-revolution.

[2] The Credentials Committee elected at the first
session of the Congress was composed of two Bolsheviks, two Mensheviks and one
so-called “neutral”, who was in fact a conciliator (he headed the
Committee). The Congress approved the terms of reference of the Committee and
passed Lenin’s draft resolution, which made it a duty of the Committee to submit
written reports to the Congress. The work of the Committee and the discussion of
its reports at the plenary sessions of the Congress took place in an atmosphere
of intense struggle between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Relations became
particularly strained at the sixth session of the Congress over the Committee
proposal to cancel the credentials of Artamonov (F. A. Sergeyev, or Artyom), a
Bolshevik delegate from the Kharkov organisation. The Bolsheviks on the
Committee declared that they were leaving the Committee, and then the Congress
elected a new Committee made up of Mensheviks and conciliators.

[3] The protest of the Tiflis workers against the
powers of the Menshevik delegation , signed by 200 persons, was read at the
twentieth session of the Congress. It said that in drawing up the lists of Party
members the Tiflis Mensheviks had ignored the Rules of the R.S.D.L.P., and had
included chance people in the list. The Mensheviks had “discovered” over 3,000 Party members in Tiflis. The
worker Social-Democrats of Tiflis maintained in their protest that the
city could not be represented at the Congress by as many as 11
delegates.

[4] The minutes of the Fourth (Unity) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.,
published in 1007, had serious shortcomings—they did not contain
records of a number of reports and speeches made at the Congress,
specifically by Lenin.

 |  | | | Election of the Bureau. The Congress Agenda |

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V. I. Lenin
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Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
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A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


II
~~


Election of the Bureau. The Congress Agenda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I will now proceed with my narrative of the deliberations of the Congress in the
order of its sessions. The election of the Bureau was the first vote that was
taken, and virtually pre-determined (strange as this may seem to an outsider)
all the most important votes at the Congress. About 60 votes (not less than 58,
if my memory is not at fault) were cast for Plekhanov and Dan, many leaving
blank the space on their ballot papers for the third candidate. Forty-odd, or
about forty votes, were cast for me. Then the “Centre” made a show,
adding 10 or 15 votes to one or the other candidate. Those elected were:
Plekhanov, with 69 votes, I think (or 71?), Dan 67 votes, and I obtained 60
votes.

On the question of the agenda, the debate on two occasions was very interesting
and threw a great deal of light on the composition and character of the
Congress. First there was the debate on whether the question of amalgamation with the national Social-Democratic parties should be taken as the first
item. The national parties wanted this, of course. We, too, were in favour of
it. The Mensheviks, however, voted it down. Their argument was: let the
R.S.D.L.P. define its own position first and then amalgamate with others; let
“us” first determine what “we” are ourselves,
and after that we can amalgamate with “them”. To this argument
(psycho logically quite intelligible, and from the factional Menshevik point of
view quite correct), we answered: is it not strange to deny the national parties
the right to define their position together with us? If
“they” are to amalgamate with “us”, “we”
will, and ought to, determine what “we” are together. It
must also be added that before the Congress the Joint Central Committee had
already concluded an agreement with the Polish Social-Democratic Party for its
complete merging with us. Nevertheless, the proposal to take this as the first
item on the agenda was defeated. Comrade Warszawski, a member of the Polish
delegation, protested against this so outspokenly that he turned to the
Mensheviks and exclaimed, amidst general laughter: “First of all you want
to ’gobble up’ or ’slaughter’ the Bolsheviks and then amalgamate with us!” This
was said in jest, of course, and I am least of all inclined to cavil at
“frightful words” like “gobble up”; but this jest was a
very striking and apt appraisal of a peculiar political situation.

The second interesting debate was on whether the question of the present state
of our revolution and the class tasks of the proletariat should be put on the
agenda. We Bolsheviks were, of course, in favour of this, in keeping with our
declaration in Partiiniye Izvestia , No.

				  2. [1] From the standpoint of
principle there could be no question of shirking the fundamental issue as to
whether the revolution is really on the eve of an upswing, what forms of the
revolutionary movement are the most important today in view of the objective
conditions, and, consequently, what tasks confront the proletariat. In opposing
the inclusion of this question in the agenda, the Mensheviks put themselves in a
very unenviable position. Their arguments to the effect that this was a
theoretical question, that the Party could not be bound by resolutions on such questions, and so forth, were quite amazingly artificial and
      far-fetched. There was a burst of laughter when, in reply to a speech by
      no less a person than Dan, who had vehemently opposed the inclusion of
      this question in the agenda, a speaker took out a copy of Partiiniye
      Izvestia , No. 2, and calmly read the “fatal words” in
    the Menshevik tactical platform:

“ We”—yes, we Mensheviks—“are of the opinion and pro pose
that the Congress should agree.” How is that, comrades? asked the
speaker. Yesterday you said: “We propose that the Congress should agree,”
but today you say: “We propose that the Congress” should not discuss
this question? The question was put on the agenda, but subsequently, as we shall
see later on, the Mensheviks had their own way after all.


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Notes
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[1] See p. 149 of this volume.— Ed .

 | The Composition of the Congress | | | The Agrarian Question |

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Works
		  Index|Volume 10 | | | Collected Works|L.I.A. Index


============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


III
~~~


The Agrarian Question
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The agrarian question, or rather, the question of the agrarian programme, was
taken by the Congress as the first item on the agenda. There was a big debate on
this, and a large number of most interesting points of principle were
raised. There were five reporters. I spoke in favour of the draft of the
Agrarian Committee (published in the pamphlet Revision of the Agrarian
Programme of the Workers’ Party ), and attacked Maslov’s proposal for
municipalisation. Comrade John spoke in favour of the latter. The third
reporter, Plekhanov, defended Maslov, and tried to persuade the Congress that Lenin’s
proposal for nationalisation smacked of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the
Narodnaya Volya. The fourth reporter, Schmidt, [10] supported the
Agrarian Committee’s draft with amendments on the lines of “Variant
A” (for which see the pamphlet mentioned

				above [1] ).

The fifth reporter,
Borisov, advocated division of the land. His programme was rather original in
construction, but in substance it approximated most to our programme, except
that for nationalisation—made conditional on the establishment of a
republic—he substituted division of the land among the peasants as their
property.

Of course, it is quite impossible for me to give in this re port a full account
of that lengthy debate in all its details. I shall try to deal with the more
important points, i.e., the nature of “municipalisation”, and the
arguments advanced against nationalisation made conditional on the
establishment of a republic, and so forth. I will remark that the pivot of the debate
was Plekhanov’s formulation of the question: this was due to its polemical
acerbity, which is always good and desirable for the purpose of clearly
distinguishing between the fundamental tendencies of the various trends of thought.

What is the essence of “municipalisation”? It is the transfer of the
landed estates (or to be precise, of all large private estates) to the Zemstvos,
or to local self-government bodies in general. The peasants’ allotments, and the
land of the smallholders, are to remain their property. The large estates are to
be “alienated” and transferred to democratically organised local
self-government bodies. This can be more simply expressed. as follows: the
peasants’ land can remain the peasants’ property; as for the landed estates, let
the peasants rent them from the Zemstvos, only they must be democratic Zemstvos.

As the first reporter, I emphatically opposed this proposal. It is not
revolutionary. The peasants will not agree to it. It would be harmful without a
fully consistent democratic state system, including a republic, the election of
govern ment officials by the people, abolition of the standing army, etc. Such
were my three main arguments.

I think that this draft is not revolutionary, first, because instead of
confiscation (alienation without compensation) it speaks of alienation in
general; secondly, and this is most important, it does not call for a revolutionary method of changing the agrarian system. Phrases about
democracy mean nothing whatever at a time when the Cadets, those hypocritical
advocates of compromise between the autocracy and the people, call themselves
democrats. All methods of changing the agrarian system will be reduced to a
liberal-bureaucratic reform , a Cadet reform, and not to a peasant
revolution, if there is no slogan of the immediate seizure of the land
by the peasants themselves, on the spot, that is, by revolutionary peasant
committees, and of the peasants themselves disposing of the land thus

			       seized, [2] pending the convocation of a national
    constituent assembly. Without this slogan we shall have a programme for a
    Cadet, or semi-Cadet, agrarian re form, and not for a peasant revolution.

Furthermore, the peasants will not agree to municipalisation. Municipalisation
means you can have the allotment land gratis, but for the landed estates you
must pay rent to the Zemstvo. The revolutionary peasants will not agree to
this. They will say either let us divide all the land among ourselves or let us
make all the land the property of the whole people. Municipalisation will never
become the slogan of a revolutionary peasantry. If the revolution is victorious
it cannot in any circumstances stop at municipalisation. If the
revolution is not victorious, “municipalisation” will only be
another swindle for the peasants, like the Reform of 1861. [11]

My third main argument. Municipalisation will be harmful if made conditional on
“democracy” in general, and not specifically on a republic and the
election of government officials by the people. Municipalisation means
transferring the land to the local authorities, to the self-government
bodies. If the central government is not fully democratic (a republic,
and so forth), the local authorities may be “autonomous” only in
minor matters, may be independent only in “tinkering with
wash-basins”: they may be no more “democratic” than, say, the
Zemstvos were under Alexander III. In important matters, however, particularly
in such a fundamentally important matter as the landed estates, the democracy
of local authorities in face of an undemocratic central authority would be merely
a plaything. Without a republic and the election of government officials by the
people, municipal isation would mean transferring the landed estates to elect ed
local authorities even though the central government remained in the hands of the Trepovs and Dubasovs. Such a reform would be a
plaything, and a harmful one, because the Trepovs and Dubasovs would allow the
elected local authorities to provide water, electric trains, and so forth, but never could leave them in control of land taken from the landlords. The
Trepovs and Dubasovs would transfer these lands from the
“jurisdiction” of the Zemstvos to the “jurisdiction” of
the Ministry of the Interior, and the peasants would be trebly swindled. We must
call for the overthrow of the Trepovs and Dubasovs, for the election of all
government officials by the people, and not design—instead of that and
before that—toy models of liberal local reform.

What were Plekhanov’s arguments in favour of municipal isation? In both his
speeches he laid most stress on the question of guarantees against
restoration. This curious argument runs as follows. Nationalised land was
the economic basis of Muscovy before the reign of Peter I. Our present
revolution, like every other revolution, contains no guarantees ·against
restoration. Therefore, in order to prevent the possibility of restoration
(i.e., the restoration of the old, pre-revolutionary regime), we must
particularly shun nationalisation.

To the Mensheviks this argument seemed particularly convincing, and they
enthusiastically applauded Plekhanov, especially for the “strong
language” he used about nationalisation (“Socialist-Revolutionary
talk”, etc.). And yet, if one ponders over the matter a little, one will
easily see that the argument is sheer sophistry.

First of all, look at this “national isation in Muscovy before the reign
of Peter I”. We will not dwell on the fact that Plekhanov’s views on
history are an exaggerated version of the liberal-Narodnik view of Muscovy. It
is absurd to talk about the land being nationalised in Russia in the period
before Peter I; we have only to refer to Klyuchevsky, Yefimenko [12] and other
historians. But let us leave these excursions into history. Let us assume for a
moment that the land was really nationalised in Muscovy before the reign of
Peter I, in the seventeenth century. What follows from it? According to
Plekhanov’s logic, it follows that nationalisation would facilitate the
restoration of Muscovy. But such logic is sophistry and not logic, it is
juggling with words with out analysing the economic basis of developments, or
the economic content of concepts. Insofar as (or if) the land was nationalised in
    Muscovy, the economic basis of this national isation was the Asiatic
    mode of production. But it is the capitalist mode of
    production that became established in Russia in the second half of
    the nineteenth century, and is absolutely predominant in the twentieth
    century. What, then, remains of Plekhanov’s argument? He confused
    nationalisation based on the Asiatic mode of production with national
    isation based on the capitalist mode of production. Because the words are
    identical he failed to see the fundamental difference in economic, that is,
    production relations. Although he built up his argument on the restoration
    of Muscovy (i.e., the alleged restoration of Asiatic modes of production),
    he actually spoke about political restoration, such as the restoration of
    the Bourbons (which he mentioned), that is, the restoration of the
    anti-republican form of government on the basis of capitalist production
    relations.

Was Plekhanov told at the Congress that he had got him self muddled up? Yes, a
comrade who at the Congress called himself Demyan [13] said
in his speech that Plekhanov’s “restoration” bogy was an out-and-out
fizzle. The logical deduction from his premises is the restoration of Muscovy,
i.e., the restoration of the Asiatic mode of production—which is a sheer
absurdity in the epoch of capitalism. What actually followed from his
conclusions and examples is the restoration of the Empire by Napoleon, or the
restoration of the Bourbons after the great French bourgeois revolution. But
first, this sort of restoration had nothing in common with pre-capitalist modes
of production. And secondly, this sort of restoration followed, not on
the nationalisation of the land, but on the sale of the landed estates, that is,
a measure that was arch-bourgeois, purely bourgeois and certainly one that
strengthened bourgeois, i.e., capitalist production relations. Thus neither form of restoration that Plekhanov dragged in—neither the
restoration of the Asiatic mode of production (the restoration of Muscovy). nor
restoration in France in the nineteenth century, had anything at all to do with
the question of nationalisation.

What was Comrade Plekhanov’s reply to Comrade Demyan’s absolutely irrefutable
arguments? He replied with uncommon adroitness. He exclaimed: “Lenin is a
Socialist-Revolutionary. And Comrade Demyan is feeding me a new brand of Demyan hash.” [14]

The Mensheviks were delighted. They laughed till their sides ached at
Plekhanov’s sparkling wit. The hall rocked with applause. The question whether
there was any logic in Plekhanov’s argument about restoration was completely
shelved at this Menshevik Congress.

I am far from denying, of course, that Plekhanov’s reply was not only a superb
piece of wit, but, if you will, also of Marxist profundity. Nevertheless, I take
the liberty of thinking that Comrade Plekhanov got himself hopelessly muddled up
over the restoration of Muscovy and restoration in France in the nineteenth
century. I take the liberty of thinking that “Demyan hash” will
become a “historic term” that will be applied to Comrade
Plekhanov and not to Comrade Demyan (as the Mensheviks, fascinated by the
brilliance of Plekhanov’s wit, think). At all events, when Comrade Plekhanov,
in speaking about the seizure of power in the present Russian revolution, was
tickling his Mensheviks with a story about a Communard in some provincial town
in France who munched sausage after the unsuccessful “seizure of
power”, several delegates at the Unity Congress remarked that Plekhanov’s
speeches were like a “Moscow stew”, and that they sparkled with
“sausage wit”.

As I have already said, I was the first reporter on the agrarian question. And
in winding up the debate, I was not the last to be given the floor but the
first, preceding the other four reporters. Consequently I spoke after Comrade Demyan and before Comrade Plekhanov. Hence I was unable to
foresee Plekhanov’s brilliant defence against Demyan’s arguments. I briefly
reiterated these arguments and concentrated on the question of restoration as
such, rather than on revealing the utter futility of the talk about restoration
as an argument in favour of municipalisation. What guarantees against
restoration have you in mind?—I asked Comrade

Plekhanov Is it absolute
guarantees in the sense of eliminating the economic foundation which engenders
restoration? Or a relative and temporary guarantee, i.e., creating political
conditions that would not rule out the possibility of restoration, but would
merely make it less probable,would hamper restoration? If the former, then my
answer is: the only complete guarantee against restoration in Russia (after a victorious revolution
      in Russia) is a socialist revolution in the West. There is and can be no
      other guarantee. Thus, from this aspect, the question is: how can the
      bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia facilitate, or accelerate, the
      socialist revolution in the West? The only conceivable answer to this is:
      if the miserable Manifesto of October 17 gave a powerful impetus to the
      working-class movement in Europe, then the complete victory of
    the bourgeois revolution in Russia will almost inevitably (or at all events,
    in all probability) arouse a number of such political upheavals in Europe
    as will give a very powerful impetus to the socialist revolution.

Now let us examine the “second”, i.e., relative guarantee against
restoration. What is the economic foundation of restoration on the basis of
the capitalist mode of production, i.e., not the comical “restoration of
Muscovy” but restoration of the type that occurred in France at the
beginning of the nineteenth century? The condition of the small commodity
producer in any capitalist society. The small commodity producer wavers between
labour and capital. Together with the working class he fights against the
survivals of serfdom and the police-ridden autocracy. But at the same time he
longs to strengthen his position as a property-owner in bourgeois society, and
therefore, if the conditions of development of this society are at all
favourable (for example, industrial prosperity, expansion of the home market as
a result of the agrarian revolution, etc.), the small commodity producer inevitably turns against the proletarian who is lighting for
socialism. Consequently, I said, restoration on the basis of small commodity
production, of small peasant property in capitalist society, is not only
possible in Russia, but even inevitable , for Russia is mainly a
petty-bourgeois country. I went on to say that from the point of view of
restoration, the position of the Russian revolution may be ex pressed in the
following thesis: the Russian revolution is strong enough to achieve victory by
its own efforts; but it is not strong enough to retain the fruits of victory. It
can achieve victory because the proletariat jointly with the revolutionary
peasantry can constitute an invincible force. But it cannot retain its victory,
because in a country where small production is vastly developed, the small commodity producers (including the
peasants) will inevitably turn against the proletarians when they pass from freedom to socialism. To be able to retain its victory,
to be able to prevent restoration, the Russian revolution will need non-Russian reserves , will need outside assistance. Are there such
reserves?

Jes, there are: the socialist proletariat in the West.

Whoever overlooks this in discussing the question of restoration reveals that
his views on the Russian revolution are extremely narrow. He forgets that France
at the end of the eighteenth century, in the period of her bourgeois-democratic
revolution, was surrounded by far more backward, semi-feudal countries, which
served as the reserves of restoration; whereas Russia at the beginning of the
twentieth century, in the period of her bourgeois-democratic revolution, is
surrounded by far more advanced countries, where there is a social force capable
of becoming the reserve of the revolution.

To sum up. In raising the question of guarantees against restoration, Plekhanov
touched upon a number of most interesting subjects but he explained nothing at
all on the point at issue and led away (led his Menshevik audience away) from
the question of municipalisation. Indeed, if the small commodity producers, as a
class, are the bulwark of capitalist restoration (this is what we shall for
short call restoration on the basis, not of the Asiatic, but of the capitalist
mode of production), where does municipalisation come in? Municipalisation is a
form of landownership; but is it not clear that the forms of
landownership do not alter the main and fundamental features of a class? The petty bourgeois will certainly and inevitably serve as the
bulwark of restoration against the proletariat, no matter whether the land is
nationalised, municipalised or divided. If any sharp distinctions between the
forms of landownership can be drawn in this respect, it can, perhaps, only be in
favour of division, since that creates closer ties between the small proprietor
and the land—closer and, therefore, more difficult to

				break. [3] But to urge municipalisation as an argument against restoration is simply ridiculous.

Comrades John and Plekhanov, who spoke after me in winding up the debate, tried
once again to jump imperceptibly from this flimsy argument about restoration to
another, which seemed to resemble it, but was really of an entirely different
nature. They began to defend municipalisation, not as a guarantee against
restoration of the monarchy after the establishment of a republic, that is, not
as a measure that would safeguard the republic, not as a permanent
institution, but as a basis in the process of the struggle against the
monarchy for a republic, i.e., a measure that would facilitate further gains, a
temporary and transitional institution. Plekhanov even went to the length of
calling the large local self-government bodies that would municipalise the land
local “republics” that would serve as strongholds in the war against
the monarchy.

On this argument, we would make the following observations:

First, neither Maslov’s original programme nor the
John Plekhanov-Kostrov [15] programme that was adopted at the
Congress indicated by a single word that they regarded
municipalisation as a temporary, transitional measure in the course of the
revolution, i.e., as a weapon in the struggle for further gains . Thus
such an interpretation is “a free invention”, which is not confirmed
but refuted by the text of the programme. For example, in advocating in my
programme the establish ment of revolutionary peasant committees as an
instrument of the revolution, as a basis in the struggle for further gains, I
say in so many words: the Party advises the peasant committees to seize the
land and dispose of it pending the convocation of a constituent
assembly . The Maslov-John-Plekhanov Kostrov programme, not only does not
say

				this, [4] but on the contrary, outlines beyond question a plan for a permanent system of land tenure.

Secondly, the main and fundamental answer to the argument we are examining is
that in the guise of a guarantee against restoration or against reaction,
Plekhanov’s programme actually advocates a deal with reaction . Just
think. Do we not write our programme, and particularly the agrarian (peasant)
programme, for the broad masses whom we want to lead? But what do we get? Some
members of the Party, be they even leaders, will say that Zemstvos which have
municipalised the land will be republics, fighting against the monarchy at the
centre. In the programme, the agrarian revolution is directly and definitely
linked with democratic local administration; but not by one word is it
linked with complete democracy in the central govern ment and state
system! I ask you: What is to guide our rank-and-file Party workers in their
everyday agitation and propaganda? Plekhanov’s talk about local
“republics”

fighting against the central monarchy, or the text of our new Party programme,
in which the demand for land for the peasants is definitely linked only with
democratic local administration, not with democratic central government and
state system? Plekhanov’s statements, muddled in them selves, will inevitably
play the same role of a “misleading” slogan as the “celebrated” (“celebrated” in Plekhanov’s
opinion) slogan of “revolutionary local self-government”. In
practice , our Party programme remains the programme of a deal with
reaction . If we take its real political significance in the
present situation in Russia, and not the motives advanced by some of our
speakers, it is not a Social-Democratic programme, but a Cadet programme. Some
of our speakers’ motives are of the very best, their intentions are most
Social-Democratic; but the programme has turned out in practice to be a Cadet
programme, filled with the spirit of a “deal” and not of a
“peasant revolution” (incidentally, Plekhanov said that formerly we were afraid of the peasant revolution but now we must get
      rid of this fear).

Above, I examined the scientific significance of the argument about
“guarantees against restoration”. I now come to its political significance, in the period of Dubasov constitutionalism and
of the Cadet State Duma. The scientific significance of this argument is zero,
or minus one. Its political significance is that it is a weapon borrowed from
the Cadet arsenal and brings grist to the mill of the Cadets. Look around! Which trend in politics has made almost a monopoly of pointing to the danger
of restoration? The Cadet trend. What answer have the Cadets given millions of
times to our Party comrades who have pointed to the contradiction between the
“democratic principles” of the Cadets and their monarchist, etc.,
programme? That to touch the monarchy means creating the danger of
restoration. The Cadets have been shouting to the Social-Democrats in a thousand
different sharps and fiats: “Don’t touch the monarchy, for you have no
guarantee against restoration. Why create the danger of restoration, the danger
of reaction? Far better to strike a bargain with reaction!” This is the sum and
substance of the Cadets’ political wisdom, all their programme, all their
tactics. And these are the logical outcome of the class position of the petty
bourgeois, of the danger that democratic revolution carried through to the end
represents for the bourgeoisie.

I will give only two examples in confirmation of the foregoing. In December
1905, Narodnaya Svoboda , the organ of Milyukov and Hessen, wrote that
Moscow had proved that insurrection was possible; nevertheless, insurrection was
fatal, not because it was hopeless, but because reaction would sweep away the
gains of the insurrection (quoted in my pamphlet Social-Democracy :and the
State

			      Duma [5] ).

The other example. In Proletary , in 1905, 1 quoted
an extract from an article by Vinogradov in Russkiye

			   Vedomosti . [6] Vinogradov had expressed a desire that the Russian revolution should follow the
lines of 1848-49 and not 1789-93; that is to say, that we should not have any victorious insurrections, that our revolution should not be carried to
its complete fulfilment, that it should be cut short as early as possible by the
treachery of the liberal bourgeoisie, by the latter’s deal with the monarchy. He
raised the bogy of restoration in the guise of the Prussian drill
sergeant—without saying a word, of course, about such a “guarantee
of revolution” as the German proletariat.

This argument about the absence of guarantees against restoration is a purely
Cadet idea: it is the bourgeoisie’s political weapon against the
proletariat . The interests of the bourgeoisie force it into struggling to
prevent the proletariat from completing the bourgeois-democratic revolution
jointly with the revolutionary peasantry. In this struggle, the bourgeois
philosophers and politicians inevitably clutch at historical arguments and
examples from the past. In the past it always happened that the workers were
bamboozled, that even the victory of the revolution was followed by
restoration. Consequently, the same thing must happen here, says the bourgeoisie,
naturally striving to undermine the faith of the Russian proletariat in its own
strength and in the strength of European socialism. The sharpening of political
contradictions and of the political struggle results in reaction, says the
bourgeois for the edification of the workers: therefore these contradictions
must be blunted . Rather than run the risk of reaction coming after
victory, it would be better not to fight for victory, but to strike a bargain
with reaction.

Is it an accident that Plekhanov began to snatch at the ideological weapon that
the bourgeoisie uses against the proletariat? No, this was inevitable after he
had wrongly appraised the December uprising (“it was wrong to take up
arms”) and, without calling a spade a spade, had begun, in his Dnevnik ,
to advocate that the workers’ party should support the Cadets. At the Congress
this question was touched upon during the debate on another item of the agenda,
when the question was raised as to why the bourgeoisie was praising Plekhanov. I
shall deal with this point in its proper place; but here I will note that I did
not elaborate the foregoing arguments at length, but presented them in the most
general outline. I said that our “guarantee against restoration”
was the complete fulfilment of the revolution, and not a deal with reaction. And
it is this, and this alone, that is emphasised in my agrarian programme which
is entirely a programme of peasant uprising and of the complete fulfilment of the
      bourgeois-democratic revolution. For example, “peas ant
      revolutionary committees” are the only line along which peasant
      uprising can advance (moreover, 1 do not counter- pose peasant committees
      to revolutionary power, in the way the Mensheviks draw a contrast between
      the latter and revolutionary self-government; I regard these committees
      as one of the instruments of such authority, an instrument that must be
      supplemented by other, central instruments, by a provisional revolutionary
      government and a national constituent assembly). This is the only formulation of the agrarian programme that can preclude a
    bourgeois-bureaucratic settlement of the agrarian question, a settlement by
    the Petrunkeviches, Rodichevs, Kaufmans and Kutlers.

Plekhanov could not but see this fundamental feature of my programme. He saw it,
and admitted it at the Congress. But (true to his nature) his admission was just
another Demyan hash, or Plekhanov trash: oh, Lenin’s programme contains the
idea of seizing power. Lenin himself admits it. But that’s just what is
bad. It’s Narodnaya Volya-ism. Lenin is reviving Narodnaya Volya-ism. Comrades,
fight against the revival of Narodnaya Volya-ism! Lenin even talks about
“the creative activity of the people”. Isn’t that Narodnaya
Volya-ism? And so on, and so forth.

We Bolsheviks, both Voyinov [16] and I, heartily thanked Plekhanov for these
arguments. Arguments like these can only benefit us, and we welcome them. Ponder
over this argument, comrades: “Since Lenin’s programme contains the idea
of seizing power, Lenin is a Narodnaya Volya-ist.” Which programme are we
discussing? The agrarian programme. Who is to seize power, according to this
programme? The revolutionary peasantry. Does Lenin confuse the proletariat with the
peasantry? Far from doing that, he singles it out in the third part of his
programme, which (the third part) the Menshevik Congress copied in full in its
resolution on tactics!

Good, isn’t it? Plekhanov himself said that it is unbecoming for Marxists to be afraid of a peasant revolution. But at the same time he fancies he
can see Narodnaya Volya-ism in the seizure of power by the revolutionary
peasants!! But how can a peasant revolution win if the revolutionary
peasantry does not seize power?? Plekhanov has reduced his own arguments to
absurdity. Having stepped on to a slope; he irresistibly rolls down. First he
denied that it was possible for the proletariat to seize power in the present
revolution. Now he denies that it is possible for the revolutionary peasantry to
seize power in the present revolution. But if neither the proletariat nor the revolutionary peasantry can seize power, then, logically, that
power must remain in the hands of the tsar and of Dubasov. Or should
the Cadets take power? But the Cadets do not want to seize power themselves, for
they are in favour of retaining the monarchy, the standing army, the Upper
Chamber and all the other delights.

Was I not right when I said at the Congress that Plekhanov’s fear of
seizing power is fear of the peasant revolution? Was not Voyinov right when
he said that in his youth Plekhanov had been so scared by the Narodnaya Volya
that he fancies he can see it even when he himself admits that a peas ant
revolution is inevitable, and when not a single Social-Democrat has any
illusions as to peasant socialism? Was not Voyinov right when, in connection
with the Menshevik resolution on armed uprising (Clause 1 of which starts with
the admission that the task is “to wrest power from the autocratic
government”), he ironically remarked at the Congress that to “seize
power” means reviving the Narodnaya Volya, but to “wrest
power” is true and profound Marxism? But really, it has turned out that in
order to combat a Narodnaya Volya trend among the Social-Democrats, the
Mensheviks have bestowed on our Party a programme which advocates the “wresting of power”—by the Cadets .

Of course,these outcries about Narodnaya Volya-ism did not surprise me in the
least. I remember only too well that the opportunists in the Social-Democratic
movement have always (ever since 1898-1900) raised this bogy against the
revolutionary Social-Democrats. And Comrade Akimov, who at the Unity Congress
made a brilliant speech in defence of Axelrod and the Cadets, quite
appropriately recalled this. I hope to return to this subject on another
occasion in the literature.

A word about “the creative activity of the people”. In what sense
did I speak about this at the Congress? In the same sense as I speak about it in
my pamphlet The Victory of the Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’

			      Party [7] (this pamphlet was
    distributed among the delegates at the Congress). I contrast
    October-December 1905 to the present Cadet period, and say that in the
    revolutionary period the creative activity of the people (the revolutionary
    peasants plus the proletarians) is richer and more productive than in the
    Cadet period. Plekhanov thinks that this is Narodnaya Volya-ism. I think
    that from the scientific point of view, Plekhanov’s opinion is an evasion of
    the highly important question of appraising the period of October-December
    1905 (it never occurred to him to analyse the forms of the
      movement of this period in his Dnevnik; he confined himself
    to moralising!). From the political point of view, it is merely additional
    proof of how close Plekhanov’s tactics are to those of Mr. Blank, and of the
    Cadets in general.

To finish with the agrarian question, I will deal with the last of the important
arguments. Plekhanov said: “Lenin is a dreamer; he has fantastic ideas
about the election of govern ment officials by the people, and so forth. It is
not difficult to draw up a programme for such a favourable contingency. Try to
draw one up for an unfavourable contingency. Draw up your programme so as to
have it ’well shod on all four hoofs’."

Undoubtedly, this argument contains an idea to which every Marxist should pay
the strictest attention. Indeed, it would be a very poor programme that allowed
for only a favourable contingency. But it is from this standpoint, I
said in reply to Plekhanov, that my programme is obviously superior to
Maslov’s. To satisfy oneself of this, one has only to remember that there is
such a thing as the renting of land. What distinguishes the capitalist
(and semi-capital ist) mode of production in agriculture? Everywhere it is the
renting of land. Does this apply to Russia? Yes, on a very large scale. And
Comrade John was wrong when, in re plying to me, he said that my programme
contained an absurdity, namely, that the renting of land remains after the
land. ed estates are confiscated. On this point, Comrade John was thrice wrong:
first, the whole of the first part of my programme speaks of the first
steps of the peasant revolution (seizure of the land pending the
convocation of a national constituent assembly); hence, in my programme, the renting of land does not “remain
after” confiscation, but is taken for granted, because it is a
fact. Secondly, confiscation means transferring the ownership of land to other
hands, and in itself, the transference of ownership, does not in the least
affect the renting of land. Thirdly, as everybody knows, peasant land and
allotment land are also being rented.

See how things stand as regards being “well shod on all four hoofs”,
as regards taking the worst as well as the best possible conditions into
account. Maslov, with a majestic gesture, completely strikes out the renting of
land. He assumes straightway a revolution that will abolish the renting of
land. As I pointed out, this assumption is absolutely absurd from the point of
view of “unpleasant reality” and of having
to take it into account. Indeed, the whole of the first part of my
programme is entirely based on the assumption of “unpleasant
reality”, against which the revolutionary peasants are
rebelling. Therefore in my programme the renting of land does not vanish into
the realm of shades (the abolition of the renting of land in capitalist society
is a reform no less, if not more, “fantastic”, from the point of
view of Plekhanov’s “common sense”, than the abolition of the
standing army, etc.). Hence I take “unpleasant reality”
into account much more seriously than Maslov, while I preach pleasant reality to the peasants, not in terms of a Cadet deal (local republics versus
the central monarchy), but in terms of the complete victory of the revolution
and the winning of a really democratic republic.

I especially emphasised at the Congress that it was particularly important to
have this element of political propaganda in the agrarian programme; and in all
probability I shall have to deal with this point again more than once in the
literature. At the Congress we Bolsheviks were told: we have a political programme,
and that is where we ought to talk about a republic. This argument shows that
those who made it have not thought out the question at all. True, we have a
general programme, in which we formulate our principles (the first section of the
Party programme) and we have special programmes: political, workers’, and
peasants’ programmes. Nobody proposes that a reservation should also be
made in the workers’ section of the programme (eight-hour day, etc) regarding the special political conditions required for the various reforms
      proposed in it. Why? Because the eight-hour day and similar reforms must inevitably become instruments of progress under all political conditions. But is it necessary to make special
      reservations as regards political conditions in the peasant
    programme? Yes, because the very best redistribution of the land may become an instrument of retrogression under the regime of the
    Trepovs and Dubasovs. Take even Maslov’s programme. It advocates the
    transfer of the land to the democratic state and to democratic local self-government bodies. Thus, although the Party
    has a political programme, Maslov’s programme makes special reservations
    as regards the political conditions for present-day agrarian reforms. Hence
    there can be no argument about the necessity of making reservations as
    regards special political conditions for agrarian demands. The point at
    issue is:

is it permissible, either from the standpoint of science or of consistent
proletarian democracy, to link a radical agrarian revolution, not with the
election of government officials by the people, not with a republic, but with
“democracy” in general, i.e., with Cadet democracy as well, which today,
whether we like it or not, is the principal and most wide spread form of
pseudo-democracy, and the most influential in the press and in
“society”. I think that this is not permissible. I predict that the
mistake in our agrarian programme will have to be, and will be, put right by
practical experience, that is to say. the political situation will compel our propagandists and agitators in their fight against the
Cadets to emphasise, not Cadet democracy, but the election of govern ment
officials by the people, and a republic.

As for the programme which advocates the division of the land, I expressed my
attitude towards it at the Congress in the following terms: municipalisation is
wrong and harmful; division, as a programme, is mistaken, but not
harmful. Therefore I, of course, am closer to those who are for division, and I
am prepared to vote for Borisov as against Maslov. In the first place, division
cannot be harmful, because the peasants will agree to it; and in the second
place, it does not have to be made conditional on the consistent reorganisation
of the state. Why is it mistaken? Because it one-sidedly regards the peasant
movement only in the light of the past and present, and gives no consideration to the future. In arguing against
nationalisation, the “divisionists” say:

when you hear the peasants talking about nationalisation, you must understand
that it is not what they want. Don’t pay attention to words, but to the
substance. The peasants want private ownership, the right to sell land; and
their talk about “God’s land”, and so forth, is merely an
ideological cloak for their desire to take the land away from the land lords.

In my answer to the “divisionists” I said: all that is true; but our
disagreements only begin where you think the question is settled. You repeat
the mistake made by the old materialists, concerning whom Marx said: the old
materialists have interpreted the world, but we must change it. [17] Similarly, the advocates of division rightly understand what the
peasants say about nationalisation, they rightly interpret what they
say ; but the point is that they do not know how to convert this correct
interpretation into an instrument for changing the world , into an
instrument of progress. We are not suggesting that we should impose
nationalisation on the peas ants instead of division (Variant A in my programme
removes all ground for such absurd ideas if they do occur to any one). What we
are suggesting is that a socialist, in ruthlessly exposing the peasants’
petty-bourgeois illusions about “God’s land”, should be able to show
them the road of progress. I told Plekhanov at the Congress, and I will repeat
it a thousand times, that the practical workers will vulgarise the present
programme just as they vulgarised the demand for the restitution of the cut-off
lands; they will convert a minor mistake into a major one. They will try to
convince the crowds of peasants—who are shouting that the land is no
body’s, the land is God’s,the land is the state’s—of the advantages of
division, and by that will discredit and vulgarise Marxism. This is not what we
must tell the peasants. We must say: there is a great deal of truth in what you
say about the land being God’s, nobody’s or the state’s; but we must look at the
truth very closely. If the land is the state’s and Trepov is at the head of the
state, then the land will be Trepov’s. Is that what you want? Do you want the
land to pass into the hands of the Rodichevs and Petrunkeviches if they should
succeed in capturing power, and consequently, the state, as they would like to do? Of course, the peasants will answer: no, we don’t want
      that. We will not surrender the land taken from the landlords either to
      the Trepovs or to the Rodichevs. If that is so, we must say, all
      government officials must be elected by the people, the standing army must
      be abolished, we must have a republic. Only then will the
    transfer of the land to the “state”, to “the
    people”, be a useful and not a harmful measure. And from the strictly
    scientific point of view, from the point of view of the conditions of
    develop ment of capitalism in general, we must undoubtedly say if we do not
    want to differ with Volume III of Capital—that the
    nationalisation of land is possible in bourgeois society, that it promotes
    economic development, facilitates competition and the influx of capital into
    agriculture, reduces the price of grain, etc. Hence, in a period of real
    peasant revolution, given fairly well-developed capitalism, we cannot in any circumstances adopt a crude and sweepingly negative
    attitude towards nationalisation. That would be narrow, one-sided, crude and
    short-sighted. We should only explain to the peas ants what political
    conditions are necessary for nationalisation to make it a useful measure,
    and then proceed to show its bourgeois character (as is done in Section 3 of
    my programme, now incorporated in the resolution of the Unity

			       Congress [8] ).

In concluding my narrative of the arguments about the agrarian question at the
Congress, I will mention the amendments that were proposed to Maslov’s draft
programme. When the question of which draft to take as a basis was voted on,
Maslov’s draft at first obtained only 52 votes, that is, less than
half . About 40 voted in favour of division (I voted with the
“divisionists” to avoid splitting the vote against
municipalisation). Only when a second vote was taken did Maslov’s draft obtain 60-odd
votes, as all the waverers voted for it, to save the Party from being left
without any agrarian programme at all.

One of the amendments that the Mensheviks voted down was aimed at a more precise
definition of the term: democratic state. We proposed the formulation: “a
democratic republic fully guaranteeing the sovereignty of the
people”. This amendment was based on the idea, outlined above, that with out complete democratisation of the central state authority, municipalisation would be
positively harmful, and might degenerate into a Cadet agrarian reform. The
amendment caused a storm. I was not in the hail at the time. I remember that as
I was passing through an adjoining room on my way back to the hall, I was struck
by the extraordinary noise in the “lobbies” and heard people
jesting, saying: “Comrade John has proclaimed a republic!” “He could
find no guarantees against restoration!” “Comrade Plekhanov has restored
the monarchy.”

As I was told afterwards, what happened was this. The Mensheviks, thin-skinned
as usual, took offence at this amendment, which they regarded as an attempt to
prove that they were opportunists, that they were opposed to a republic. There
were angry speeches and shouts. The Bolsheviks also got heated, of course. They
demanded a vote by roll-call. This stirred passion to fever heat. Comrade John
was embarrassed, and being loath to create discord—he was not at all
“against a republic”, of course—he got up and announced that
he would withdraw his formulation and sup port the amendment. The Bolsheviks
applauded the “proclamation of a republic”. But Comrade Plekhanov,
or some other Menshevik, intervened, the argument started afresh, a demand was
made for another vote, and the “monarchy was restored”
by—according to what I was told—a matter of 38 votes to 34
(evidently many of the delegates were absent from the hall, or abstained from
voting).

Of the amendments that were accepted, I must mention the substitution of the
term “confiscation” for the term “alienation”. Then the
“municipalisers” had, after all, to make a concession to the
“divisionists”, and Comrade Kostrov proposed an amendment which in
certain conditions permitted of division as well. Thus, instead of Maslov’s
original programme, the result was, as someone wittily put it at the Congress, a
“castrated” programme. It is, in effect, a blend of nationalisation
(certain lands are to become national property), municipalisation (part
of the land is to be transferred to large local self-government bodies), and
lastly, division. To this must be added that neither the programme nor the
resolution on tactics specifies when we are to support municipalisation and when division. The upshot was a
      programme, not well shod on all four hoofs, but with all four shoes

				loose. [9]


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] See p. 194 of this volume.— Ed .

[2] My draft said “confiscated”. Comrade Borisov quite rightly remarked
that this was a wrong formula. We should say “seized”. Confiscation is
the legal recognition of seizure, its legalisation. We should advance the
slogan of confiscation. To put it into effect, we should call upon the
peasants to seize the land. This seizure by the peasantry must he
recognised, legalised, by the national constituent assembly, which, as the
supreme organ of a sovereign people, will transform seizure into confiscation by passing a law to that effect.— Lenin

[3] We say “perhaps”, because it is still an open question whether these
closest ties between the small proprietor and his “plot” are not the most
reliable bulwark of Bonapartism. But this is not the place to go into the
details of this concrete question.— Lenin

[4] It was because Plekhanov’s programme does not say this that we, at the
Congress, had every right to put this new interpretation of
municipalisation on a par with the “revolutionary local self-govern ment”
advocated by the Mensheviks. But it was none other than Plekhanov who,
after the Bolsheviks had explained the point at great length, was compelled
to admit that the slogan of “revolutionary local self- government”
explained nothing and, indeed, misled many people (see Dnevnik ,
No. 5). Even in Vperyod and Proletary , the Bolsheviks bad
already said that the slogan of “revolutionary local self-government” was inadequate and incomplete, that it did not express the conditions of
the complete victory of the revolution It is not revolutionary local
self-government that is needed for such a victory, but revolutionary
authority; and not only local revolutionary authorities, but also a central
revolutionary authority. (See present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 179-87, 212-23,
356-73.— Ed .) — Lenin

[5] See p. 109 of this volume— Ed .

[6] See present edition, Vol. 9, pp. 240-45.— Ed .

[7] See pp. 242-70 of this volume.— Ed .

[8] See pp. 194-95 of this volume.— Ed .

[9] The sharpest criticism of Maslov’s “castrated” programme was uttered
at the Congress by a Menshevik comrade (Strumilin), an advocate of partial
division. He read a written statement in which he very aptly and ruthlessly
exposed—perhaps it would be more correct to say flayed—the inherent
contradictions in the programme as it finally emerged. Unfortunately, I did
not take any notes of his speech.— Lenin

[10] Schmidt —P. P. Rumyantsev, who at the Fourth (Unity)
Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. adhered to the Bolsheviks.

[11] The reference is to the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861.

[12] Klyuchevsky, V. 0. (1841-1911) and Yefimenko, A. Y. (1848-1919)—
prominent Russian historians.

[13] Demyan —I. A. Teodorovich.

[14] “ Demyan Hash ”—title of a fable by I. A. Krylov.

[15] Kostrov —N. N. Jordania, Caucasian Menshevik
leader.

[16] Voyinov —the Bolshevik A. V. Lunacharsky.

[17] Lenin is quoting Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach” (see
Marx and Engels, Selected Works , Vol. II, Moscow, 1958,
p. 405).

 | Election of the Bureau. The Congress Agenda | | | Appraisal of the Revolutionary Situation and of the Class Tasks of the Proletariat |

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V. I. Lenin
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Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


IV
~~


Appraisal of the Revolutionary Situation and of the
Class Tasks of
the Proletariat
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The question mentioned in the above heading was the second item on the agenda
of the Congress. The reporters were Martynov and I. Strictly speaking, Comrade
Martynov in his report did not defend the Menshevik draft resolution, printed in Partiiniye Izvestia , No. 2. He preferred to give a “general
outline” of his views and a general criticism of what the Mensheviks call
Bolshevik views.

He spoke of the Duma as a political centre, of the harmfulness of the idea of
seizing power, and of the importance of the country’s constitutional development
in a revolutionary period. He criticised the December uprising, called upon us
openly to admit our defeat, and condemned our resolution for its
“technical” presentation of the question of strike and
insurrection. He said that “the Cadets, although they are anti-revolutionary,
are erecting the scaffolding for the further development of the
revolution”. (Then why do you not say so in your resolutions, we asked.)
He said that “we are on the eve of a revolutionary

			    explosion”. [1] (Why isn’t that in your resolution, we asked again.) Incidentally, he said:
“Objectively, the Cadets will play a more important role than the
Socialist-Revolutionaries.” The idea of seizing power is akin to the ideas of
Tkachov; the Duma must be put into the foreground as the first step in the
country’s “constitutional development”, as the corner-stone of the edifice of “representative
institutions”—such was the gist of Comrade Martynov’s report. Like all
Mensheviks, he passively adjusted our tactics to the slightest turn in the
course of events, subordinated them to fleeting interests, to momentary (or
apparent) needs, and involuntarily belittled the main and fundamental tasks of
the proletariat as the vanguard fighter in the bourgeois democratic revolution.

I based my report on a precise comparison of the two resolutions before the
Congress. I said that both resolutions admit that the revolution is on the rise
again, that our task is to strive to carry the revolution to the end, and
lastly, that only the proletariat together with the revolutionary peasantry can
accomplish this. One would think that these three propositions should lead to
complete unanimity on the tactical course to be adopted. But which of the two
resolutions more consistently upholds this main point of view, more correctly
motivates it, and more accurately indicates the conclusions to be drawn from
it?

And I went on to show that the argument of the Menshevik resolution was utterly
untenable, that it was a mere collection of phrases and not an argument
(“the struggle has left the government no choice”. This is a splendid
specimen of sheer phrase-mongering! It is the very thing that has to be proved,
but not in this form. The Mensheviks, however, start out from unproved and
unprovable premises). I said that whoever really admits that an upswing
of the revolution is inevitable must draw the proper conclusion as to the main form of the movement. For this is the fundamental scientific and
political problem that we have to solve, and which the Mensheviks are
dodging. They argue as follows. When there is a Duma, we will support the Duma;
when there is a strike and insurrection, we will support the strike and
insurrection. But they are unwilling, or unable, to deter mine whether the one
or the other form of the movement is inevitable. They do not dare tell the
proletariat, and the whole people, which is the main form of the
movement. That being the case, all those phrases about the upswing of the
revolution and about its completion (the Mensheviks very ineptly said: its logical completion) are so many platitudes. They imply that the
proletariat—whose conception of the revolution is the deepest and broadest, and whose tactics are prompted by the
      general and fundamental interests of democracy—must not be elevated
      to the position of foremost leader of the revolution, but must be
      degraded to the position of a passive participant and humble
      “labourer” in the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

The Mensheviks, I said, accept only the first half of Hegel’s celebrated
proposition: “All that is real is rational, and all that is rational is
real.” The Duma is real; therefore the Duma is reasonable, they say, and rest
content with that. We say:

the fight outside the Duma is “reasonable”. It is the objectively
inevitable result of the whole of the present situation. Therefore it is
“real”, although it is held down for the moment. We must not
slavishly follow the fleeting moment; that would be opportunism. We must ponder
over the more pro found causes of events and over the more far-reaching
implications of our tactics.

The Mensheviks in their resolution admit that the revolution is on the rise and
that the proletariat jointly with the peasantry must carry it to completion. But
whoever seriously takes that view must also be able to draw the necessary
conclusions. If you say: jointly with the peasantry, it shows that you think
that the liberal-monarchist bourgeoisie (Cadets, etc.) is unreliable. Why,
then, don’t you say so, as we do in our resolution? How is it that you do not
say a single word about the necessity of combating constitutional illusions,
that is, belief in the promises and laws of the old autocratic government? It is
habitual for the Cadets to forget about this; they themselves spread
constitutional illusions. But a Social-Democrat who at a moment of revolution
forgets the task of combating constitutional illusions, politically puts himself on a footing with the Cadets. What is the use of phrases like
“upswing of the revolution”, “carrying it to completion”, or
“a new revolutionary explosion”, if the Social-Democrats do nothing
to dispel the constitutional illusions that are widespread among the people?

At the present time the question of constitutional illusions is the best and
surest criterion by which to distinguish the opportunist from those who want the
revolution to develop further. The opportunist shirks the task of dispelling
these illusions. The advocate of revolution ruthlessly exposes their deceptive character. And yet the Menshevik Social-Democrats are silent on
a question like this!

Not daring to say openly and frankly that the October-December forms of
struggle are unfit and undesirable, the Mensheviks say it in the worst, covert,
indirect and evasive way. This is quite unbecoming for Social-Democrats.

Such were the main points of my report.

As regards the debate on these reports, the following characteristic incidents
are worth mentioning. A comrade who at the Congress was known as Boris
Nikolayevich [2] gave me occasion to exclaim in my reply to the debate:
“The ball comes to the player!” It would be difficult to express the
“sum and substance” of Menshevism more vividly than he did. He said
that it was “curious” that the Bolsheviks should regard the
revolutionary movements of the broad masses of the people, and not the legal or
constitutional form, as the “main form of the movement”. He
said this was “ridiculous”, for there were no such movements,
whereas there was a Duma. All this talk about the proletariat being the
“head”, or “leader”, about the possibility of it
becoming the “tail”, and so forth, was “metaphysics” and
“phrase-mongering”.

Take off your Cadet spectacles, I said in reply to this consistent
Menshevik. You will then see a peasant movement in Russia, and unrest among the
armed forces, and the move ment of the unemployed: you will see forms of
struggle that at the moment are “lying low”, but the existence of
which even bourgeois moderates do not dare to deny.They openly say that these
forms are harmful and needless; but the Menshevik Social-Democrats scoff at them. This is the difference between the bourgeoisie and the
Menshevik Social-Democrats. This was exactly the case with Bernstein, the
German Menshevik, the German Right Social-Democrat. The bourgeoisie in Germany
at the end of the nineteenth century held, and openly declared, that
revolutionary forms of struggle were harmful. Bernstein scoffed at
them.

Being raised at the Congress, the question of Bernstein naturally led to the
question, why was the bourgeoisie praising Plekhanov? The fact that all the
numerous liberal-bourgeois newspapers and other publications in Russia,
including even the Octobrist Slovo , were most zealously praising
Plekhanov could not pass unnoticed at the Congress.

Plekhanov picked up the gauntlet. He said that the bourgeoisie was not praising
      him for what it had praised Bernstein for. Bernstein was praised for
      surrendering to the bourgeoisie our theoretical weapon, Marxism. He
      (Plekhanov) was being praised for his tactics. The situation was
      different.

Plekhanov was answered by the representative of the Polish Social-Democratic
Party and by myself. We both point ed out that Plekhanov was wrong . The
bourgeoisie praised Bernstein not only for theory, and, in fact, not for theory
at all. The bourgeoisie doesn’t care a pin for any theory. The bourgeoisie
praised the German Right Social-Democrats because they advocated different tactics . They were praised for their tactics, for their reformist
tactics as distinct from revolutionary tactics; for regarding the legal,
parliamentary, reformist struggle as the main, or almost the sole, form of
struggle; for striving to convert the Social-Democratic Party into one of
democratic social reforms. That is why Bernstein was praised. The bourgeoisie
praised him for trying to blunt the antagonisms between labour and
capital in the period preceding socialist revolution. The bourgeoisie is
praising Plekhanov for trying to blunt the antagonisms between the
revolutionary people and the autocracy in the period of the bourgeois-democratic
revolution. Plekhanov is being praised for regarding the
“parliamentary” struggle as the main form of struggle; for
condemning the October-December struggle, and particularly the armed
uprising. Plekhanov is being praised because on the question of present-day
tactics he has become the leader of the Right Social-Democrats.

I have forgotten to add what stand the Mensheviks took in the debate on
constitutional illusions. Theirs was not a firm stand. Some of them said that it
was always the task of the Social-Democrats to combat constitutional illusions,
and that this was not the special task of the present moment. Others (Plekhanov)
declared that to combat constitutional illusions was anarchism. These two
extreme and opposite opinions on constitutional illusions glaringly revealed
the utter helplessness of the Mensheviks’ position. When a constitutional
system has become firmly established, when, for a certain period, the
constitutional struggle becomes the main form of the class struggle and of the
political struggle generally, the task of dispelling constitutional illusions is not the special task of the
Social-Democrats, not the task of the moment. Why? Because at such times affairs
in constitutional states are administered in the very way that
parliament decides. By constitutional illusions we mean deceptive faith in a
constitution. Constitutional illusions prevail when a constitution seems to
exist, but actually does not: in other words, when affairs of state are not administered in the way parliament decides. When actual
political life diverges from its reflection in the parliamentary
struggle, then, and only then , does the task of combating
constitutional illusions be come the immediate task of the advanced
revolutionary class, the proletariat. The liberal bourgeois, dreading the extra-
parliamentary struggle, spreads constitutional illusions even when parliaments
are impotent. The anarchists flatly reject participation in parliament under all
circumstances. Social-Democrats stand for utilising the parliamentary struggle,
for participating in parliament; but they ruthlessly expose “parliamentary
cretinism”, that is, the belief that the parliamentary struggle is the sole or under all circumstances the main form of the political
struggle.

Are the political realities of Russia at variance with the decisions of, and
speeches made in, the Duma? Are affairs of state in our country administered in
the way the Duma decides? Do the “Duma” parties reflect with any
degree of accuracy the real political forces in the present state of
the revolution? One has only to put these questions to understand the
Mensheviks’ helpless confusion on the question of constitutional illusions.

This confusion was revealed with uncommon vividness at the Congress when,
although in the majority, the Mensheviks dared not put their resolution
appraising the present situation to the vote. They withdrew their resolution!
The Bolsheviks had a good laugh over this at the Congress. The victors are
withdrawing their victorious resolution—that is what was said about the
extraordinary behaviour of the Mensheviks, unprecedented in the history of
congresses. A vote by roll-call was demanded and secured on this question,
although, curiously enough, the Mensheviks were angry over this and submitted to
the Bureau a written statement which said that “Lenin is collecting
material for agitation against the decisions of the Congress”. As if the right to collect material were
      not the right and duty of every opposition! And as if our victors were
      not, by their chagrin, accentuating the impossibly awkward predicament
      into which they had put themselves by withdrawing their own resolution!
      The vanquished insist on the victors accepting their own victorious
      resolution! We could not wish for a more outspoken confirmation of the
      moral victory we had achieved.

The Mensheviks said, of course, that they did not wish to impose upon us
something we did not agree with, that they did not want to resort to coercion,
and so forth. Naturally, these excuses only raised a smile, and led to more
demands for a vote by roll-call. For on those questions, on which the Mensheviks
were convinced they were right, they did not hesitate to “impose”
their opinion upon us, and to resort to “coercion” (why this
terrible word, I wonder?), and so forth. The resolution appraising the present
situation did not commit the Party to any particular action. But without it,
the Party could not understand the principles and motives under lying all the tactics adopted by the Congress.

In this respect, the withdrawal of the resolution was a supreme manifestation
of practical opportunism. Our business is to be in the Duma when there is a
Duma, and we don’t want to hear anything like general arguments, general
appraisals or well-considered tactics—this, in effect, is what the
Mensheviks said to the proletariat by withdrawing their resolution.

Undoubtedly the Mensheviks had convinced themselves that their resolution was
wrong and worthless. It is quite out of the question that people who are
convinced that their views are correct should refuse to express them openly and
definitely. But the crux of the matter was that the Mensheviks could not even
propose any amendments to their resolution. This suggests that they could not
agree among them selves on a single important point concerning the appraisal of
the situation and of the class tasks of the proletariat in general. They could
agree only on a negative decision:

to withdraw the resolution altogether. They had a vague presentiment that if
their resolution defining principles were adopted, it would undermine
their practical resolutions. But they did not gain anything
thereby. The resolutions of the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks on the appraisal of the present situation can
and must be discussed and compared by the whole Party, by all Party organisations. The question was left open. But it must be settled. And a
comparison of these two resolutions with the experience of political life, with
the lessons taught by, say, the Cadet Duma, will splendidly confirm the
correctness of the Bolshevik views on the present state of the Russian
revolution and on the class tasks of the proletariat.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] I have put in inverted commas the words that I have found in my
notes.— Lenin

[2] Boris Nikolayevich —the Menshevik B. I. Soloveichik.

 | The Agrarian Question | | | Attitude Towards the State Duma |

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V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


V
~


Attitude Towards the State Duma
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


On the question of the Duma, the reporter from the faction that predominated at
the Congress was Comrade Axel rod. He too, in a long speech, refrained from
discussing the comparative merits of the two resolutions (the committee
submitted two resolutions, because the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks could not
reach agreement), from stating in precise terms the views of the Minority on
this question, but gave a “general outline” of the meaning of
parliamentarism. He went far afield, took a long excursion into history, and
drew a picture of parliamentarism, of its significance, its role in the
development of proletarian organisation, in agitation, in the awakening of the
class-consciousness of the proletariat, and so forth. Casting innuendoes all the
time at “anarchistic-conspiratorial” views, he soared entirely in
the realm of abstractions, in the lofty sphere of platitudes and magnificent
reflections on history which were applicable to all times, to all nations and
to all periods in history in general: but which, owing to their abstract
character, were useless for dealing with the concrete features of the concrete
matter in hand. I remember the following particularly glaring example of the
incredibly abstract, vapid and general way in which Axelrod presented his
case. Twice in his speech (I made a note of this) he touched on the question of
bargains, or agreements, between the Social-Democrats and the Cadets. Once he
touched on it in passing, spoke of it in disparaging terms, and in a word or two
expressed his opposition to all agreement. The second time he dealt with it at
greater length and said that, speaking generally, agreements were permissible,
except that they must not be hole-and-corner doings by committees, but public
      agreements visible and clear to all the workers, and must represent
      important political steps, or actions. Such agreements, he said, would
      enhance the significance of the proletariat as a political force,
      would-more clearly and distinctly reveal to it the machinery of politics
      and the different positions and different interests of the various
      classes. They would draw the proletariat into definite political
      relationships, teach it to see its enemies and ill-wishers, and so on and
      so forth. It was arguments of this kind that Comrade Axelrod’s very long
      “report” consisted of. One can not relate them—one can
      only give an idea of them by giving an example or two.

In my report in reply I said, first of all, that Axelrod had painted a very
pretty, in fact, a charming picture. He had painted it lovingly and skilfully,
applying vivid colours and fine strokes. The only pity was that the picture was
not drawn from life. It was a fine picture—there could be no doubt about
that—but its subject was purely imaginary. It was a splendid study on the
theme of the significance of parliamentarism in general, a fine popular lecture
on the functions of representative institutions. The only pity was that he said
and explained absolutely nothing about the concrete historical conditions of the
existing Russian “parliament”, if one may call it that. Axelrod, I
said, had given himself entirely away by his remarks on agreements with the
Cadets. He had admitted that the importance of such agreements—sometimes
inevitable when genuine parliamentarism exists—depended on the
possibility of coming out openly before the masses, on the possibility of
banishing the old “hole-and-corner” method and substituting for it
agitation among the masses, the in dependence of the masses, and public
utterances before the masses.

Magnificent things, sure enough. But are they possible under the Russian
“parliamentary” system? Or rather, is this the form that real mass
actions take in Russia under the present real (and not pictorial) objective
conditions? Is it not the case, Comrade Axelrod, that Social-Democrats are
obliged to make the appeals to the masses that you desire by means of illegal
leaflets, while the Cadets have newspapers printed in millions of copies at
their disposal? Would it not have been better if, instead of uselessly depicting the charms of
parliamentarism (which nobody denies), you had told us how matters really stand
as regards Social-Democratic newspapers, meetings, clubs, and unions? Surely
there is no need for me to prove to you, a European, that your general remarks
about parliamentarism tacitly presuppose news papers, meetings, clubs and
unions, and that all these are part and parcel of the parliamentary system?

Why did Axelrod in his report confine himself to platitudes and abstract
propositions? In order to leave in the back ground the concrete political
realities of Russia in the period February-April 1906. These realities reveal
much too sharp antagonisms between the autocracy and the
downtrodden but indignant proletariat and peasantry . To charm his
audience with the picture of parliamentarism in general, he had to tone down
these antagonisms, to blunt them, to draw an “ideal” plan
of an ideal, open agreement with the Cadets; and above all he had to make an abstraction of these sharp antagonisms, forget them, say nothing about
them.

In order to assess our actual disagreements and not to soar in the skies, I, in
my report, compared the two resolutions and analysed them in detail. It
appeared that there were four main points of difference between the Menshevik
and Bolshevik resolutions on the Duma.

First, the Mensheviks made no appraisal of the elections. At the time of the
Congress the elections had been held in nine-tenths of Russia. These elections
had undoubtedly provided ample political material for a realistic, and not
fanciful, picture of the situation. We weighed up this material very frankly and
carefully, and said: it shows that in the vast majority of places in Russia
participation in the elections meant supporting the Cadets, and that it was not
really a Social-Democratic policy. The Mensheviks say not a word about
this. They are afraid to put the question on a concrete basis. They are
afraid to face the facts and to draw the necessary conclusions from this
position between the Cadets and the Black Hundreds. They do not appraise the actual elections, their results as a whole , because such an
appraisal would prove them wrong .

Secondly, throughout their resolution the Mensheviks take, or regard, the Duma
as a legal institution, and not as an instrument that expresses the will (or lack of will) of certain elements of
      the bourgeoisie, not as an instrument that serves the interests of certain
      bourgeois parties. In their resolution, they speak of the Duma in general,
      of the Duma as an “institution”, as an instrument of popular
      representation in its “pure” form. This is not a Marxist
      method of argument but a purely Cadet method; not a materialist but an
      ideal ist method, in the worst sense of the word; not a proletarian class
      method, but one of philistine vagueness.

Take, for example, the following extremely characteristic expression in the
Menshevik resolution, I said at the Congress:

“(4) that these conflicts [with reaction I, compelling the State Duma to
seek support among the broad masses...” (I am quoting from the draft which the
Mensheviks submitted to the Congress). Is it true to say that the Duma can and
will seek support among the broad masses? Which Duma? An Octobrist
Duma? Certainly not. A Duma of peasants’ and workers’ deputies? It has no need
to seek support, for it has, has had, and will have support. A Cadet
Duma? Yes, this is true as regards such a Duma, and only such a Duma. A Cadet
Duma certainly has to seek support among the broad masses. But as soon
as you give the Mensheviks’ abstract, idealistic and general formulation a
definitely class content, you at once see that its wording is incomplete, and
therefore wrong. The Cadets strive to lean on the people. That is
true. That is word for word what our (Bolshevik) resolution on the attitude to
wards the bourgeois parties says about them. But our resolution goes on to say
that the Cadets waver between the desire to lean on the people and fear of its revolutionary independence . No socialist will dare deny the
justice of the words I have underlined. Why, then, did the Mensheviks, in a
resolution on the Duma, when it was already known that the Duma would be Cadet
in character, tell only half the truth? Why did they only note the bright side of the Cadets, and say nothing about the reverse side of
the medal?

Our Duma is not the incarnation of the “pure idea” of popular
representation. Only bourgeois philistines among our Cadet professors can think
so. Our Duma is what the representatives in it of definite classes and
definite parties make of it. Our Duma is a Cadet Duma. If we say that it is
striving to lean on the people and do not add that it is afraid of independent revolutionary activity by the people, we will be telling a downright
lie, we will be misleading the proletariat and the whole people. We will be
yielding in the most unpardonable way to the mood of the moment, and show that
we are under the spell of the victories of a party that wavers between liberty
and the monarchy, that we are incapable of appraising the true nature of that
party. The Cadets, of course, will praise us for this reticence, but will the
class-conscious workers do as much?

Another example. “The tsarist government is striving to check the
revolutionary upsurge,” say the Mensheviks in their resolution. That is
true. But is it only the tsarist government that is striving to do that? Have
not the Cadets shown a thousand times already that they, too, are striving both to lean on the people and to check its revolutionary up
surge? Is it proper for Social-Democrats to put the Cadets in a better light
than they deserve?

And I drew the following conclusion. Our resolution says that the Duma will indirectly help to develop the revolution. This is the only correct formula, for the Cadets waver between revolution and reaction. Speaking about the Duma , our resolution plainly and bluntly says that the in
stability of the Cadets must be exposed. To say nothing about this in a
resolution on the Duma means indulging in a bourgeois idealisation of
“popular representation in its pure form”.

And practical experience has already begun to refute the Mensheviks’
illusions. In Nevskaya Gazeta , [2] you will even now find
statements (not systematically consistent, unfortunately) to the effect that
the Cadets in the Duma have not been behaving in a revolutionary way and that
the proletariat will not permit “deals between the Milyukovs and the old
regime”. In saying this, the Mensheviks fully bear out the correctness of
my criticism of their resolution at the Congress. In saying this, they are
following in the wake of the revolutionary tide, which, although relatively
weak, has already begun to reveal the true nature of the Cadets, and is already
proving that the Bolshevik presentation of the question is correct.

Thirdly, I said, the Menshevik resolution does not draw a clear distinction
between the various types of bourgeois democrats from the point of view of
proletarian tactics. The proletariat must, to a certain extent, march with the bourgeois democrats,
      or “march separately, but strike together. But with which section
      of the bourgeois democrats must the proletariat “strike
      together”, in the present Duma period?
      You yourselves,Menshevik comrades, realise that the very existence of the
      Duma is bringing up this question—yet you dodge it. We,
      however, have
      said plainly and bluntly: with the peasant or revolutionary
      democrats, neutralising, by our agreement with them, the instability and
      inconsistency of the Cadets.

In reply to this criticism, the Mensheviks (especially Plekhanov, who, I repeat,
was the actual ideological leader of the Mensheviks at the Congress) tried to
make their position more profound”. Yes, they exclaimed, you want to
expose the Cadets! But we are exposing all the bourgeois parties. Look
at the last part of our resolution: “to reveal to the masses the
inconsistency of all the bourgeois parties etc. And Plekhanov proudly
added that only bourgeois radicals attack solely the Cadets; we socialists
expose all the bourgeois parties.

The sophistry hidden in this seeming “deepening” of the question was
resorted to so often at the Congress, and is so often resorted to now, that it
is worth saying a few words about it.

What is this resolution about? Is it the socialist exposure of all bourgeois
parties, or defining which section of the bourgeois democrats can help the
proletariat now to carry the bourgeois revolution still further forward?

Clearly, it deals with the latter and not with the former question.

If that is clear, there is no point in substituting the first question for the
second. As regards the attitude to be adopted towards the bourgeois parties, the
Bolshevik resolution clearly speaks of the socialist exposure of all bourgeois
democracy, including that of revolutionary and peasant democrats. But as far as
present-day proletarian tactics are concerned, the question is not one of
socialist criticism, but of mutual political support.

The further the bourgeois revolution advances, the farther left the proletariat
seeks for allies among the bourgeois democrats, and the deeper it goes from
their upper ranks to their lower ranks. There was a time when help could come from Marshals of the Nobility and from Mr. Struve, who (in 1901) put forward the
Shipov slogan: “Rights and an Authoritative
Zemstvo”. [3] The revolution has gone far beyond that. The upper ranks of the bourgeois
democrats have be gun to desert the revolution. The lower ranks have begun to
awaken. The proletariat has begun to seek allies (for a bourgeois revolution) in the lower ranks of the bourgeois democrats. And today, the only
correct definition of the tactics of the proletariat in this respect will be:
with the peasantry (who are also bourgeois democrats: don’t forget this,
Menshevik comrades) and with the revolutionary democrats, paralysing the instability
of the Cadets.

And again. Whose line have the first steps of the Cadet Duma proved correct?
Reality has already outstripped our debates. Reality has compelled even Nevskaya Gazeta to single out the Peasant (“Trudovik”)
Group [4] in preference to the Cadets, to seek a rapprochement with it and to expose the Cadets. Reality has proved that
we were right in our watch word: the proletariat’s allies until the victory of
the bourgeois revolution is achieved are the peasant and revolutionary
democrats.

Fourthly, I criticised the last clause of the Menshevik resolution concerning a
Social-Democratic group in the Duma. I pointed out that the great bulk of the
class-conscious proletariat had not voted. Would it be advisable under these
conditions to impose official representatives of the Party on this mass of
workers? Can the Party guarantee that the candidates had really been chosen by
Party organisations? Will not the fact that the first Social-Democratic members
of the Duma are expected to come from the peasant and town
petty-bourgeois curias create a certain danger and an abnormal situation? The
first candidates of the Social-Democratic Labour Party to the Duma, not chosen
by the workers’ organisations, and not under their control.... Comrade
Nazar’s [5] amendment, which demanded that Social-Democratic
candidates to the Duma be nominated by local workers’ organisations,
was rejected by the Mensheviks. We demanded a vote by roll-call, and recorded
our dissenting opinion in the

			       minutes. [1]

We voted for the amendment moved by the comrades from the Caucasus (to
      participate in the elections where they have not yet taken place, but not
      to enter into any blocs with other parties), because the prohibition of
      blocs, of agreements with other parties, was undoubtedly of great
      political significance for the Party.

I will add that the Congress rejected the amendment of Comrade Yermansky (a
Menshevik who regarded himself as a conciliator), who wanted participation in
the elections to be permitted only in those cases where it was possible to carry
on agitation among the masses and to organise them on a large scale.

The representatives of the national Social-Democratic parties—the Poles,
Bundists and, I think, also the Letts— took part in the debate on this
question, and emphatically declared for the boycott. They stressed the necessity
of taking specific local conditions into account, and protested against the
settlement of a question like this on the basis of abstract arguments.

On the question of the formation of a Social-Democratic group in the Duma, the
Congress also passed an instruction to the Central Committee, which,
unfortunately, was not included in the decisions of the Congress published by
the Central Committee. The Congress instructed the Central Committee to inform all Party organisations specifically: (1) whom, (2) when, and (3) on
what conditions it has appointed as Party representatives in the parliamentary
group, and also to submit periodical reports of the activities of
these Party representatives. [6] This resolution instructs the local workers’
organisations to which the Social-Democratic deputies in the Duma belong to
keep control over their “delegates” in the Duma. I will mention, in
parenthesis, that this important resolution, which shows that the views of
Social-Democrats on parliamentarism differ from those of bourgeois
politicians, was unanimously condemned, or ridiculed, both in
Mr. Struve’s newspaper Duma [7] and in Novoye Vremya .

Lastly, in concluding my narrative of the debate on the State Duma, I will
mention two more episodes. The first was the speech of Comrade Akimov, who had
been invited to at tend the Congress as a consultative delegate. For the
information of those comrades who are not familiar with the history of our Party, I will say that since the late t1890s Comrade Akimov has been
the most consistent, or one of the most consistent, opportunists in the
Party. Even the new Iskra has had to admit this. Akimov was
an “Economist” [8] in 1899 and subsequent years, and
has remained true to type. Mr. Struve, in Osvobozhdeniye , has extolled
him more than once for his “realism” and for the scholarly quality
of his Marxism. There is hardly any difference between Comrade Akimov and the
Bernsteinians of Bez Zaglavia (Mr. Prokopovich and others). Naturally,
the presence at the Congress of such a comrade could not but be valuable in the
struggle between the Right and Left wings of Social-Democracy.

Comrade Akimov was the first to speak after the reporters on the question of the
State Duma. He said that he did not agree with the Mensheviks on many points,
but he fully agreed with Comrade Axelrod. He was in favour not only of going
into the Duma, but also of supporting the Cadets. Comrade Akimov was the only
consistent Menshevik at the Congress in openly standing up for the Cadets (and
not in a covert way, not by saying, for example, that the Cadets were more
important than the Socialist-Revolutionaries). He openly rose in arms against
the appraisal of the Cadets that I made in my pamphlet The Victory of the
Cadets and the Tasks of the Workers’ Party . The Cadets, he said, “are
really a party of people’s freedom, but a more moderate one”. The Cadets
are “orphan democrats”, said our orphan Social-Democrat. “The
Mensheviks have to put up artificial barriers to prevent themselves from
becoming accomplices of the Cadets.”

The reader will see that Comrade Akimov’s speech merely served as additional and
convincing evidence of the direction our Menshevik comrades are taking.

The second episode showed this from another angle. This is what happened. In the
original draft of the Menshevik resolution on the State Duma proposed by the
commit tee, Clause 5 (on the armed forces) contained the following sentence:

... “Seeing for the first time on Russian soil a new authority, sprung
from the depths of the nation, called into being by the tsar himself and
recognised by the law ”, etc. In criticising the Menshevik resolution
for what may mildly be called its imprudent and optimistic attitude towards the
State Duma, I also criticised the words I have underlined, and said jestingly: should we not add “and sent by God’s grace”
      (meaning authority)? Comrade Plekhanov, a member of

the committee, was frightfully angry with me for cracking this joke. What, he
exclaimed in his speech, must I listen to these “suspicions of being an
opportunist”? (His exact words, as I wrote them down.) I have served in the army
myself, and I know the military man’s attitude towards authority; I know of the
importance he attaches to authority recognised by the tsar, etc., etc. Comrade
Plekhanov’s resentment exposed his vulnerable spot, and showed still more
clearly that he had “overdone it”. In my speech in reply to the
debate, I said that it was not a matter of “suspicions”, and it was
ridiculous to use such pitiful expressions. Nobody was accusing Plekhanov of
believing in the tsar. But resolutions are not written for Plekhanov; they are
written for the people. And it was indecent to disseminate among the people
such ambiguous arguments, fit only for Messrs. Witte and Co. These arguments
would turn against us, for if we stressed that the State Duma was an
“authority” (?? this word alone reveals the excessive optimism of
our Mensheviks), and an authority called into being by the tsar, then it would
be inferred that this lawful authority must act according to the law, and obey
the one who “called it into being”.

The Mensheviks themselves realised that Plekhanov had overdone it. On a motion
that came from their ranks, the words underlined above were deleted from the
resolution.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] See pp. 303-04 of this volume.— Ed .

[2] Nevskaya Gazeta ( The Neva Newspaper )—a legal
Menshevik paper published in St. Petersburg in May 1906.

[3] Shipov’s slogan “Rights and an Authoritative
Zemstvo”, which Struve supported in his introduction to Finance Minister
Witte’s memorandum “The Autocracy and the Zemstvo”, was criticised
by Lenin in the article “The Persecutors of the Zemstvo and the Hannibals
of Liberalism” (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 31-50).

[4] Trudoviks (from trud ,
“labour”)—a group of petty-bourgeois democrats in the Russian Duma,
consisting of peasants and also of Narodnik-minded intellectuals. The Trudovik
Group was constituted in April 1906 from the peasant deputies to the First
Duma.

The demands of the Trudoviks included the abolition of all restrictions based on
the social-estates and on nationality, the democratisation of the Zemstvos and
town self-government bodies, and universal suffrage in the elections to the
Duma. The Trudovik agrarian programme proceeded from the Narodnik principle of equalised land tenure: the formation of a national fund made up of state, crown
      and monastery lands, and also of private estates where they exceeded the
      established labour norm, with provision for compensation in the case of
      confiscated private estates. Lenin pointed out that the typical Trudovik
      is a peasant who “is not averse to a compromise with the monarchy,
      to settling down quietly on his own plot of land under the
    bourgeois system; hut at the present time his main efforts are concentrated
    on the fight against the land lords for land, on the fight against the
    feudal state for democracy”. (See present edition, Vol. 11, p. 229.)

In the Duma the Trudoviks vacillated between the Cadets and the
Social-Democrats, their vacillations being due to the very class nature of the
peasants, who are petty proprietors. Since the Trudoviks represented the peasant
masses, the tactics of the Bolsheviks in the Duma were to arrive at agreements
with them on individual issues with a view to waging a joint struggle against
the Cadets and the tsarist autocracy.

In 1917, the Trudovik Group merged with the “Popular Socialist”
Party, and gave active support to the bourgeois Provisional Government. After
the October Revolution of 1917, the Trudoviks sided with the bourgeois
counter-revolution.

[5] Nazar —the Bolshevik N. N. Nakoryakov.

[6] For the Central Committee instructions on the parliamentary
group, which were approved by the Unity Congress, see The C.P.S.U. in
Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences, and Plenary Meetings
of the Central Committee , Moscow, 1953, Part 1, pp. 137-332,
Russ. ed.

[7] Duma —a daily evening newspaper published by
the Right wing of the Cadet Party in St. Petersburg from April 27 (May 10) to
June 13 (26), 1906. Its editor was P. B. Struve, and among its contributors were
S. A. Kotlyarevsky, P. I. Novgorodtsev,
I. I. Petrunkevich, F. I. Rodichev, L. N. Yasnopoisky and ether
members of the First Duma.

[8] “ Economism”—an opportunist trend in
Russian Social-Democracy at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the
twentieth centuries, a variety of international opportunism. The newspaper Rabochaya Mysl ( Workers’ Thought ) (1897-1902) and the magazine Rabocheye Dyelo ( The Workers’ Cause ) (1899-1902) were organs of the
“Economists”, whom Lenin called Russian Bernsteinians and whose
programme was set forth in the so-called Credo , written in 1899 by
Y. D. Kuskova.

The “Economists” limited the tasks of the working class to an
economic struggle for higher wages, better working conditions, etc., asserting
that the political struggle was the concern of the liberal bourgeoisie. They
denied the leading role of the party of the working class, considering that the
party should merely observe the spontaneous process of the movement and register
events. In deference to spontaneity in the working-class movement, the Economists belittled the significance of revolutionary theory and
class-consciousness, asserted that socialist ideology could arise out of the
spontaneous movement of the workers, denied the necessity of socialist
consciousness to he brought into the working-class movement by a Marxist party,
and thereby paved the way for bourgeois ideology. Tile “Economists”,
who denied the need for a centralised working-class party, favoured a sporadic
and amateurish Social-Democratic movement. “Economism” threatened
to divert the working class from the class revolutionary path and to turn it
into a political appendage of the bourgeoisie.

The views of the “Economists” were thoroughly criticised in Lenin’s
writings “A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats” (direct ed against Credo; written in Siberian exile in 1899, it was signed by 17 exiled
Marxists), “A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy”,
“Apropos of the ‘ Profession de Foi ’\thinspace", and “A Talk with
Defenders of Economism” (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp.
167-82, 255-85, 286-96 and Vol. 5, pp. 313-20). Lenin completed the ideological
defeat of “Economism” in his book What Is To Be Done? (see
present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 347-529). Lenin’s Iskra played a major
part in the struggle against “Economism”.

 | Appraisal of the Revolutionary Situation and of the Class Tasks of the Proletariat | | | Armed Uprising |

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V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


VI
~~


Armed Uprising
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The two main questions, the agrarian question and that of the State Duma,
together with the debate on the appraisal of the situation, took up most of the
attention of the Congress. I do not remember how many days we spent on these
questions , but the fact remains that many of those present were beginning to
show signs of fatigue, and probably not only of fatigue, but of a desire to
shelve some of the items on the agenda. A motion was adopted to accelerate the
proceedings of the Congress, and the time allotted for the reports on the
question of armed uprising was cut down to fifteen minutes (the reporters on the preceding questions had their time repeatedly extended
beyond the allotted half-hour). The questions now began to be rushed through.

The reporter on armed uprising from the “Minority”, which
predominated at the Congress, was Comrade Cherevanin, and as was to be
expected—and as the Bolsheviks more than once foretold—he
“slipped down towards Plekhanov”, that is to say, he virtually took
the view of the Dnevnik , with which, before the Congress, many
Mensheviks had expressed disagreement. The notes I have on his speech contain
sentences like the following: “The December uprising was only a product
of despair”, or: “The defeat of the December uprising was a foregone
conclusion in the very first days.” Plekhanov’s dictum: “It was wrong to
take up arms” ran through his whole speech, which, as usual, was replete
with thrusts at the “conspirators” and at those who
“exaggerated the importance of technique

Our reporter, Comrade Winter, vainly tried in his short speech to induce the
Congress to appraise the exact texts of the two resolutions. He was even obliged
once to refuse to continue with his report. This was when he was about half-way
through, and was reading the first clause of the Menshevik resolution:
“The struggle is bringing to the fore front the direct task of wresting
power from the autocratic government.” It transpired that our reporter, a member
of the committee entrusted with drawing up a resolution on armed uprising, did not know that at the last moment this commit tee had
submitted to the Congress a hectographed draft of the resolution in a new version, namely, the Menshevik section of the committee, headed by
Plekhanov, proposed that the words “wresting rights by
force” be substituted for the words “wresting power”.

This alteration of the text of the resolution submitted to the Congress, without
the knowledge of the reporter, a member of the committee, was so flagrant a
violation of all rules and customs of Congress procedure that in his
indignation our spokesman refused to continue with his report. Only after lengthy
“explanations” had been made by the Mensheviks did he agree to say a
few words in conclusion.

The alteration was truly flabbergasting. A resolution on insurrection speaks,
not of the struggle for power, but of the struggle for rights! Just imagine what incredible confusion this opportunist
      formula would have caused in the minds of the masses, and how absurd would
      have been the glaring discrepancy between the majesty of the means
      (insurrection) and the modesty of the aim (to wrest rights, i.e., to wrest
      rights from the old regime, to obtain concessions from the old regime, and
      not to overthrow it).

It goes without saying that the Bolsheviks attacked this amendment with the
utmost vigour. The ranks of the Mensheviks wavered. Evidently they had
convinced themselves that Plekhanov had again overdone it, and that in practice
they would have a hard time of it trying to explain away this moderate and trim
appraisal of the aims of insurrection. Plekhanov had to back out. He withdrew
his amendment, saying that he did not attach any importance to what was,
strictly speaking, merely a matter of “style”. This was only gilding
the pill, of course. Everybody realised that it was not a matter of style at
all.

Plekhanov’s amendment clearly revealed what the Mensheviks were aiming at on
the question of insurrection: to invent dissuading arguments against
insurrection, to repudiate the December uprising, to advise against launching
another uprising, to nullify the aims of the insurrection, or define them in
such a way as to rule out insurrection as a means of achieving them. But the
Mensheviks could not bring themselves to say this straightforwardly and
emphatically, plainly and openly. Their position was utterly false: to ex press
their most cherished idea by veiled hints. The representatives of the
proletariat can and should openly criticise its mistakes, but to do so in a
veiled, ambiguous and vague form is quite unworthy of Social-Democrats. And the
Menshevik resolution involuntarily expressed this ambiguous position:
dissuading arguments against insurrection, along with a sham recognition of it
by the “people”.

The talk about technique and conspiratorial methods was too obviously an attempt
to distract attention, too crude an attempt to muffle up disagreements on the political appraisal of insurrection. To avoid making this appraisal, to
avoid saying bluntly whether the December uprising was a step forward and had
raised the movement to a higher plane, it was necessary to divert the discussion
from politics to technique, from concrete appraisal of the events of December 1905 to
generalities about conspiratorial methods. What a stain on Social-Democracy will
be left by this talk about conspiracy in connection with such a people’s movement as the December struggle in Moscow!

You want to indulge in polemics, we said to the Menshevik comrades; you want
to have a “dig” at the Bolsheviks; your resolution on insurrection
is full of thrusts at those who disagree with you. Indulge in polemics as much
as you like. It is your right and your duty. But don’t reduce the great question
of appraising historic days to petty and pettifogging polemics. Don’t humiliate
the Party by making it appear as if, in speaking of the December struggle of the
workers, peasants and town petty bourgeoisie, it could do no better than snarl
and dig at another Party group. Rise a little higher:

write a special polemical resolution against the Bolsheviks, if you want to, but
do give the proletariat and the whole people a plain, straightforward and
unambiguous answer concerning insurrection.

You shout about the overrating of technique and about conspiratorial
methods. But compare the two draft resolutions. In our resolution, you will not
find technique, but historical and political material. You will find
that it is based, not on bare and unprovable platitudes (“the object of the
struggle is to wrest power”), but on facts taken from the history of the
movement , from the political experience of the last quarter of 1905. You
lay the blame at the door of another, for it is your resolution that is utterly
lacking in historical and political material. It speaks of insurrection, but
says not a word about the relation between strike and insurrection, not a word
about how the struggle after October necessarily and inevitably led to
insurrection; there is not a single plain and straightforward statement in it
about December. It is in our resolution that insurrection appears, not as a call
from conspirators, not as a question of technique, but as the political
result of a very specific historical situation created by the October
strike, by the promise of liberties, by the at tempt to withdraw these liberties
and by the struggle to protect them.

Your phrases about technique and conspiracy are only a screen to cover up your retreat on the question of insurrection.

At the Congress, the Mensheviks’ resolution on insurrection was actually called
      “a resolution against armed uprising”. And anyone who
    at all carefully reads the texts of the two resolutions submitted to the
    Congress will hardly venture to challenge this

			      statement. [1]

Our arguments influenced the Mensheviks only in part. Whoever compares the draft of their resolution with the resolution they finally adopted will
see that they deleted a number of really petty attacks and expressions. But the
general spirit of the resolution remained unaltered, of course. It is
ahistorical fact that a Menshevik-dominated Congress, held after the first armed
uprising in Russia, betrayed bewilderment, evaded a straight answer, did not
have the courage to tell the proletariat in plain language whether this
insurrection had been a mistake or a step forward, whether a second insurrection was
necessary, and what historical connection it would have with the first.

The evasiveness of the Mensheviks, who wanted to shelve the question of
insurrection, who longed to do so but could not bring themselves to admit it,
resulted in the question virtually remaining open. The Party still has
to draw up its appraisal of the December uprising; and all Party organisations
must devote the most serious attention to this matter.

The practical aspect of the question of insurrection is also still an open
one. In the name of the Congress, it was admitted that the immediate (note this!) task of the movement is to “wrest power ”. Why, this
formulation is, if you will, ultra-Bolshevik: it reduces the whole matter to a
phrase, the very thing that we were accused of doing. But since the Congress has
said this, we must be guided by it. We must on these grounds very
strongly criticise those local and central bodies and organisations of the Party
that might forget this immediate task. On the basis of the Congress
decision we can, and must, put this immediate task first in
certain political situations. Nobody will have the right to object to this, for since the words “wrest rights” have been deleted, and we have
secured recognition of “wresting power as the immediate
task ”, this will be wholly and entirely in accordance with the line
laid down by the Congress.

We advise the Party organisations not to forget this, particularly at a time
when our far-famed Duma is being so grossly snubbed by the autocratic
government.

During the debate on armed uprising, Comrade Voyinov very aptly hit off the
tight spot in which the Mensheviks had landed. To say “wrest rights”
means expressing an utterly opportunist formula. To say “wrest
power” means throwing away all weapons in the fight against the
Bolsheviks. Now we know what orthodox Marxism and conspiratorial heresy are,
said Voyinov ironically. “To wrest power” is orthodox:

“to conquer power” is conspiracy....

The same speaker depicted the characteristics that are common to all Mensheviks
in this connection. The Mensheviks, he said, are impressionists, people who
yield to the mood of the moment. When the revolutionary tide rose and
October-November 1905 arrived, Nachalo galloped off at breakneck speed, and
went even more Bolshevik than the Bolsheviks. It galloped from democratic
dictatorship to socialist dictatorship. But when the revolutionary tide turned,
when enthusiasm ebbed and the Cadets rose to the top, the Mensheviks hastened
to adjust themselves to this subdued mood. They now trot behind the Cadets, and
disdainfully brush aside the October-December forms of struggle.

Highly interesting confirmation of the foregoing was provided at the Congress
by a written statement from the Menshevik Larin. He submitted his statement to
the Bureau, and it should therefore be fully recorded in the minutes. Larin ’s
statement said that the Mensheviks had made a mistake in October-December by
behaving like Bolsheviks. I heard verbal and informal protests against this
“valuable admission” from individual Mensheviks at the Congress, but
I will not vouch that these protests were expressed in speeches or statements.

Plekhanov’s speech was also edifying. He was talking (if I am not mistaken)
about the seizure of power, but in doing so he made a very curious slip. I am
opposed to the conspiratorial seizure of power, he exclaimed: but I am wholly in favour of the seizure of power on the lines of, say, the Convention during
      the great French Revolution.

We took Plekhanov at his word. Excellent, Comrade Plekhanov, I replied. Put
what you have said in the resolution! Condemn conspiracy as sharply as you
like—we Bolsheviks will whole-heartedly and unanimously vote for a
resolution that recognises and recommends to the proletariat the seizure of power on
the lines of the Convention. Condemn conspiracy, but recognise in your
resolution a dictatorship like the Convention, and we will agree with you
entirely and unreservedly. More than that. I guarantee that the moment you sign
such a resolution the Cadets will stop praising you !

Comrade Voyinov also pointed to the glaring contradiction in which Comrade
Plekhanov had landed as a result of his “slip of the tongue” about
the Convention. The Convention was precisely a dictatorship of the lower
classes, that is, of the lowest and poorest sections of the town and village
population. In the bourgeois revolution this was a body with full powers, wholly
and entirely dominated, not by the upper or middle bourgeoisie, but by the
common people, the poor, that is, precisely those whom we call “the
proletariat and the peasantry”. To recognise the Convention and to oppose
the seizure of power means juggling with words. To recognise the Convention and
be violently opposed to “the revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the
proletariat and the peasantry” means defeating one’s own purpose. But the
Bolsheviks have at all times and invariably spoken about the capture of power by
the masses of the people, by the proletariat and the peasantry. and not by any
“politically-conscious minority”. All the talk about conspiracy and
Blanquism was just pious declamation, which evaporated at the mere mention of
the Convention.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] In order to help the reader to study the debates at the Congress
intelligently and critically, I print in the appendix the texts of the
first drafts of the resolutions of the Majority and of the Minority, and
the texts of the resolutions adopted by the Congress. Only by carefully
studying and comparing these texts can one arrive at an independent opinion
on the question of Social-Democratic tactics.— Lenin

 | Attitude Towards the State Duma | | | The End of the Congress |

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============================================================
V. I. Lenin
============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


VII
~~~


The End of the Congress
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Armed uprising was the last question to be discussed more or less thoroughly and
on principle at the Congress. The other questions were rushed through or decided
without discussion.

The resolution on fighting guerrilla operations was adopt ed as an addendum to
the resolution on armed uprising. I was not in the hall when it was taken; nor
did I hear from any of the comrades that the debate on this question was at all
interesting. Besides, this is not a question of principle, of course.

The resolution on trade unions and that on the attitude to be adopted towards
the peasant movement were passed unanimously. In the committees which drafted
these resolutions, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks reached agreement. I will note
that the resolution on the peasant movement contains an absolutely correct
appraisal of the Cadet Party, and recognises insurrection as “the only
means” of winning freedom. Both these points should be kept in mind more
of ten in our day-to-day work of agitation.

The question of amalgamating with the national Social-Democratic parties took
up a little more time. Amalgamation with the Poles was accepted unanimously. So
was amalgamation with the Letts, I remember: at all events it was accepted
without much discussion. There was a big battle, however, over the question of
amalgamating with the Bund. As far as I remember, this was carried by 54 votes,
or there abouts. Those voting in favour were the Bolsheviks (nearly
all), the Centre, and the least factional-minded of the Mensheviks; It was
agreed that the local guiding committees of the R.S.D.L.P. should be joint
committees, and that all delegates to congresses should be elected according to
the general procedure. A resolution was adopted which recognises the necessity
of striving for centralist principles of organisation (we proposed a resolution,
worded differently, but to the same effect, in which we stressed the practical
significance of the concession we had made to the Bund, and urged the necessity
of a steady effort to unite the forces of the proletariat more closely and in
more up-to-date fashion).

Some of the Mensheviks got quite heated over the amalgamation with the Bund,
and accused us of departing from the principles laid down by the Second
Congress. The best reply to this accusation is a reference to Partiiniye
Izvestia , No. 2. In that issue, long before the Congress , the
Bolsheviks published a draft resolution proposing a number of further concessions to all the national Social-Democratic parties, even to the extent of “proportional representation in the local,
      regional and central bodies of the

			       Party”. [1] In that same issue,
      No. 2 of Partiiniye Izvestia , the Mensheviks in reply to our
    resolution published a counter-resolution, in which there was not a single word to suggest that they disagreed with our proposal to
    make further concessions to the Bund and to the other national
    Social-Democratic parties.

I think that this is the best answer to the controversial question whether it
was the Bolsheviks who voted for the Bund for factional reasons, or the
Mensheviks who for factional reasons voted against the Bund.

The Party Rules were adopted very quickly. I was a member of the committee that
drafted them. The Mensheviks wanted to raise the proportion of the Party
membership necessary to authorise the convocation of an extraordinary congress
to two-thirds of the membership. Together with my Bolshevik colleagues, I then
emphatically declared that the slightest attempt to curtail that minimum of
autonomy and of rights of the opposition which had been recognised in the Rules
adopted by the factional Third Congress would inevitably lead to a split. It is
up to you, Menshevik comrades, I said. If you choose to remain loyal to the
agree ment and respect all the rights of the minority, all the rights of the

			     opposition, [2] then we will submit, we will elect our fellow-thinkers to the
Central Committee and condemn a split. If you do not, then a split is
inevitable.

The Mensheviks agreed to come down from two-thirds to one-half. The Rules were
adopted unanimously, including Clause 1, and the principle of democratic
centralism. Only two points gave rise to disagreement.

First, we proposed that a note be added to Clause 1, to the effect that members
of the Party, on changing their place of residence, should have the right to
belong to the local Party organisation.

The purpose of this note was to preclude petty squabbling, the ejection of
dissidents from the organisation, and the refusal of Mensheviks to accept
Bolsheviks and vice versa. The Party is growing. It is becoming a mass
party. Fighting for posts must stop. All flue leading bodies in the Party are
elected bodies. The local organisation of the Party, however, should be open to
all members of the Party. Only this will prevent the ideological struggle from
being besmirched by organisational squabbles.

In spite of our insistence, the Mensheviks rejected our note. But to prove that
their intentions were loyal,they agreed to adopt the following resolution:
“The Congress rejects this note solely because it considers it to be
superfluous and self-evident ” (I am quoting from memory, as I
have not found the text of this resolution in my notes). It is very important to
bear this resolution in mind in the event of any controversy and organisational
friction arising.

The second point on which there was disagreement was the relation between the
Central Committee and the Central Organ. The Mensheviks carried the point that
the editorial board of the Central Organ is to be elected by the Congress and
that the members of the editorial board are to act as members of the Central
Committee when questions of policy are discussed (a vague point which will
probably give rise to misunderstanding). The Bolsheviks, referring to the
melancholy conflicts between writers in the Russian and

				German [3] party press,
advocated the appointment of the editorial board of the Central Organ by the
Central Committee, the latter to have the right to dismiss the editors. In my
opinion, the decision of the Mensheviks undoubtedly shows that there is
something abnormal in the relations between the writers and the
practical-political leaders in the Right wing of our Party.

As a curiosity, I must mention that at the Congress the Mensheviks endorsed the
resolution of the Amsterdam International Socialist Congress on the attitude to
be adopted towards bourgeois parties. [4] This decision will go down in the history of our Social-Democratic congresses precisely as a curiosity. Are
      not all the decisions of international socialist congresses
    binding on the Social-Democratic parties of all countries? What
    point is there in singling out and endorsing one of these decisions? Who,
    has ever heard that a Social-Democratic party in any particular country
    has, instead of deciding its attitude towards a particular bourgeois party
    in its own country, taken its stand on the common attitude in all
    countries towards all bourgeois parties? Before the Congress, both the
    Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks drafted resolutions on the attitude to be
    adopted towards the bourgeois parties in Russia , in the Year of Our
    Lord 1906 . If there was no time to examine this question at the
    Congress, then it ought to have been simply put off. But to choose this
    “middle” course of not examining the question of Russian
    parties, but of endorsing the international decision on the general
    question, was merely betraying one’s confusion to the world. It was like saying:
    as we haven’t the brains to decide what attitude to adopt towards the
    Russian parties, let us at least repeat the international decision. This was
    the most inept and ridiculous way of leaving the question open.

Yet the question is an extremely important one. The read er will find the draft
resolutions of the Majority and the Minority in the appendix. We recommend
those who are interested in this question (and which practical worker, agitator
or propagandist is not?) to compare these drafts from time to time with the
“lessons of the revolution”, that is, with the political facts about
the life of various parties that experience in Russia today provides so
amply. Whoever makes this comparison will see that the revolution is
increasingly corroborating our appraisal of the two main trends among the
bourgeois democrats: the liberal-monarchist (mainly, the Cadets) and the
revolutionary-democratic trend.

The Menshevik resolution, however, bears obvious traces of the helplessness and
confusion which led at the Congress to the curious device of endorsing the
international decision. The Menshevik resolution consists entirely of
generalities, and makes no attempt to solve (or indicate a solution of) the
concrete problems of political life in Russia. We must criticise all parties,
says this bewildered resolution: we must ex pose them, we must state that there
are no really consistent democratic parties. But how the different bourgeois parties in
Russia, or the different types of these parties, should be “criticised
and exposed”, the resolution does not know. It says we must
“criticise”, but it does not know how to criticise; for the
Marxist criticism of bourgeois parties consists in a concrete analysis
of the class basis of the different bourgeois parties, whatever it
is. The resolution helplessly says there are no really consistent democratic
parties. But it does not know how to define the different degrees of
consistency of the Russian bourgeois-democratic parties that have
already appeared and are appearing in the course of our revolution. The empty
phrases and platitudes in the Menshevik resolution have even obscured the
dividing lines of the three main types of bourgeois party in Russia: the
Octobrist type, the Cadet type and the revolutionary-democratic type. And these
our Right Social-Democrats, so ludicrously helpless when it comes to appraising
the class foundations and trends of the various parties in bourgeois Russia,
have the effrontery to accuse the Left Social-Democrats of “true
socialism”, that is, of ignoring the historically concrete role of the
bourgeois democrats! Now this is once again, indeed, laying the blame at someone
else’s door.

I have digressed somewhat from my main subject; but I warned the reader at the
very outset that I intended to combine my report on the Congress with a few
ideas about the Congress. And I think that in order to be able to appraise the
Congress intelligently, the members of the Party must ponder, not only over what
the Congress did, but also over what the Congress left undone though it should
not have. And every thinking Social-Democrat is beginning to realise more
clearly every day the importance of a Marxist analysis of the different
bourgeois-democratic parties in Russia.

The elections at the Congress took only a few minutes. Virtually, everything had
been arranged before the general sessions. The Mensheviks took all five seats on
the editorial board of the Central Organ. As for the Central Committee, we
agreed to elect three persons to it, the other seven being Mensheviks. What the
position of these three will be, as a kind of supervisors and guardians of the
rights of the opposition, is something that only the future can tell.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] See pp. 159-60 of this volume.— Ed .

[2] I will remind the reader that in my pamphlet, Social-Democracy and
the State Duma (published together with an article by Dan), I pointed
out before the Congress that the trend that remained in the minority must
be ensured freedom to criticise the decisions of the Congress and
freedom to agitate for another Congress (p. 8). (See p. 111 of this
volume.— Ed .)— Lenin

[3] The recent “affair” of the six editors of Vorwärts who
made

quite a fuss because they had been dismissed by the Executive Committee of the German
  Social-Democratic Party.” [5] — Lenin

[5] On October 24, 1905, Vorwärts carried in its issue
No. 249 a communication of the Central Executive of the German
Social-Democratic Party of October 23, 1905, on the changes made in
the editorial board of Vorwärts . Six editors who belonged to the revisionist trend in the
Party bad been removed and persons belonging to the Left wing of the Party
included in the renewed editorial board. Rosa Luxemburg had been assigned a key
role in the paper.

The opportunists launched a campaign in defence of the removed editors, but the
Party rank and file approved of and backed the
policy of the Executive.

[4] The Amsterdam Congress of the Second International was held from August 14-20 (N. 5.), 1904. Its attitude to bourgeois parties was
expressed in the resolution “International Rules for Socialist
Tactics”. The resolution forbade socialists to enter bourgeois
governments, and rejected co-operation between socialist and bourgeois
parties.

 | Armed Uprising | | | VIII. The Congress Summed Up |

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============================================================


------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


VIII
~~~~


VIII. The Congress Summed Up
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


[ SEE ALSO: “ The Congress Summed
Up ”]

Summing up the work of the Congress and the effect it has had upon our Party, we
must draw the following main Conclusions.

An important practical result of the Congress is the pro posed (partly already
achieved) amalgamation with the national Social-Democratic parties. This
amalgamation will strengthen the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. It will
help to efface the last traces of the old circle habits. It will infuse a new
spirit into the work of the Party. It will greatly enhance the might of the
proletariat of all the peoples of Russia.

Another important practical result was the amalgamation of the Minority and
Majority groups. The split has been stopped. The Social-Democratic proletariat
and its Party must be united. Disagreements on organisation have been almost
entirely eliminated. There remains an important, serious and extremely
responsible task: really to apply the principles of democratic centralism in
Party organisation, to work tirelessly to make the local organisations the
principal organisational units of the Party in fact, and not merely in name,
and to see to it that all the higher-standing bodies are elected, accountable,
and subject to recall. We must work hard to build up an organisation that will
include all the class-conscious Social-Democratic workers, and will live its
own independent political life. The autonomy of every Party organisation, which
hitherto has been largely a dead letter, must become a reality. The fight for
posts, fear of the other “faction”, must be eliminated. Let us have
really united Party organisations, in which there will only be a purely
ideological struggle between different trends of Social-Democratic thought. It will
not be easy to achieve this; nor shall we achieve it at one stroke. But the
road has been mapped out, the principles have been proclaimed, and we must now
work for the complete and consistent putting into effect of this organisational
ideal.

We think that an important ideological result of the Congress is that there is
now a clearer and more definite line of demarcation between the Right wing and
the Left wing in Social-Democracy. There is a Right and a Left wing in all tile Social-Democratic
parties in Europe; and their existence in our Party has been evident for a long
time. A more distinct line of demarcation between the two, a clearer definition
of the points of disagreement, is essential for the healthy development of the
Party, for the political education of the proletariat, and for the checking of
every inclination of the Social-Democratic Party to stray too far from the
right path.

The Unity Congress has provided a wealth of practical, documentary material that
will enable us to determine precisely and indisputably what we agree on, what
we disagree on, and how much we disagree. This documentary material must be studied; we must know the facts which reveal the true nature
and dimensions of the disagreement. We must wean ourselves of the old circle
habits—vehemence, abuse and portentous accusations instead of earnest
discussion of particular disagreements that have arisen on particular
questions. And we have thought it essential to append to this pamphlet as much documentary material as possible on the Unity Congress, to enable the
members of the Party to study the disagreements really independently
instead of taking battered catch words on faith. This documentary material is
dry, of course. Not everybody will have the patience and perseverance to read
the draft resolutions and compare them with the resolutions that were adopted,
to ponder over the significance of the different formulations of each point and
of each sentence. But whoever takes a really intelligent interest in the
decisions of the Congress cannot shirk such serious work.

And so, summing up what I have said above about the disputes at the Congress and
the different trends of the draft resolutions that the Congress did not discuss
(or post-poned), I come to the conclusion that the Congress has helped us a
great deal to draw a more distinct line of demarcation between the Right wing
and the Left wing in Social-Democracy.

The Right wing of our Party does not believe in the complete victory of the
present, i.e., bourgeois-democratic, revolution in Russia; it dreads such a
victory; it does not emphatically and definitely put the slogan of such a
victory before the people. It is constantly being misled by the essentially
erroneous idea, which is really a vulgarisation of Marxism, that only the bourgeoisie can independently “make” the
      bourgeois revolution, or that only the bourgeoisie should lead the
      bourgeois revolution. The role of the proletariat as the vanguard in the
      struggle for the complete and decisive victory of the bourgeois revolution
      is not clear to the Right Social-Democrats.

For example, they—or at all events some of their speakers at the
Congress—advance the slogan of a peasant revolution , but they do
not uphold this slogan consistently. They do not formulate in the programme a
clear revolutionary line of propaganda and agitation among the people
( seizure of the land by revolutionary peasant committees pending the national constituent assembly). They are afraid of
expressing in the programme of the peasant revolution the idea that the
revolutionary peasantry should seize power. In spite of their promises, they do not
carry the bourgeois-democratic revolution in agriculture to its
“logical” conclusion, for the only “logical” ( and
economic ) conclusion under capitalism is the nationalisation of land,
which abolishes absolute rent. They in vent an incredibly artificial middle
course, with nationalisation cut up into local areas and with democratic
Zemstvos under an undemocratic central government. They try to scare the
proletariat with the bogy of restoration, not suspecting that they are clutching
at the political weapon that the bourgeoisie uses against the proletariat, that
they are bringing grist to the mill of the monarchist bourgeoisie.

And in their entire tactical line our Right Social-Democrats overrate the
importance and role of the unstable, wavering, monarchist-liberal bourgeoisie
(the Cadets, etc.) and under rate the importance of the revolutionary bourgeois
democrats (the Peasant Union, the Trudovik Group in the Duma, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, the numerous semi-political and semi-trade-union
organisations, etc.). Their overrating of the Cadets and underrating of the
revolutionary-democratic rank and file is very intimately linked with their
mistaken views on the bourgeois revolution, referred to above. Our Right
Social-Democrats are dazzled by the tawdry successes of the Cadets, by their
glittering “parliamentary” victories and by their bombastic
“constitutional” speeches. Beguiled by the politics of the moment,
they forget the more fundamental and more important interests of democracy; they forget those forces which make less “noise” on the surface of
the “constitutionalism” permitted by the Trepovs and Dubasovs, but
which are doing much more profound, if less ostentatious, work among the
revolutionary-democratic rank and file, preparing for conflicts of a not quite
parliamentary character.

Hence the sceptical (to put it mildly) attitude of our Right Social-Democrats
towards insurrection; hence their effort to brush aside the experience of
October and December, and the forms of struggle that then arose. Hence their
irresolution and passivity in the struggle against constitutional illusions, a
struggle which comes into the forefront at every truly revolutionary
juncture. Hence their failure to under stand the historical role of the boycott
of the Duma, and their efforts to dodge the task of taking stock of the concrete
conditions of the movement at any particular

				moment [1] by use of the “biting” word “anarchism”. Hence their
      extraordinary eagerness to go into a pseudo-constitutional institution and
      hence their overrating of the positive role of this institution.

Against this tendency of our Right Social-Democrats we must wage a most
determined, open and ruthless ideological struggle. We should seek the widest
possible discussion of the decisions of the Congress. We must call upon every
member of the Party to take a conscious and critical stand on these
resolutions. We must see to it that every workers’ organisation, after making
itself thoroughly familiar with the subject, declares whether it approves or
disapproves of any particular decision. If we have really and seriously decided
to introduce democratic centralism in our Party, and if we have resolved to draw
the masses of the workers into intelligent decision of Party questions, we must
have these questions discussed in the press, at meetings, in circles and at
group meetings.

But in the united Party this ideological struggle must not split the
organisations, must not hinder the unity of action of the proletariat. This is a
new principle as yet in our Party life, and considerable effort will be needed
to implement it properly.

Freedom of discussion, unity of action—this is what we must strive to
achieve. The decisions of the Unity Congress allow sufficient scope for all
Social-Democrats in this respect. Practical measures on the lines of
“municipalisation” are still a long way off; but in the matter of
supporting the revolutionary activities of the peasantry, and of criticising
petty-bourgeois utopias, all Social-Democrats are agreed among themselves. Hence
we must discuss municipal isation, and condemn it, without being afraid of
hindering the unity of action of the proletariat.

As regards the Duma, the situation is somewhat different. During elections
there must be complete unity of action. The Congress has decided: we
will all take part in elections, wherever they take place. During
elections there must be no criticism of participation in
elections. Action by the proletariat must be united. We shall all and
always regard the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, whenever it is formed,
as our Party group.

But beyond the bounds of unity of action there must be the broadest and freest
discussion and condemnation of all steps, decisions and tendencies that we
regard as harmful. Only through such discussions, resolutions and protests can
the real public opinion of our Party be formed. Only on this condition shall we
be a real Party, always able to express its opinion, and finding the
right way to convert a definitely formed opinion into the decisions of its next congress.

Take the third resolution that caused disagreement, the one on
insurrection. Here unity of action in the midst of the struggle is absolutely
essential. In the heat of battle, when the proletarian army is straining every
nerve, no criticism whatever can be permitted in its
ranks. But before the call for action is issued, there should be the broadest
and freest discussion and appraisal of the resolution, of its arguments and its
various propositions.

Thus we have a very wide field. The resolutions of the Congress provide plenty
of scope. Any infatuation with quasi-constitutionalism, any exaggeration of the
“positive” role of the Duma by anybody, any appeals of the extreme
Right Social-Democrats for moderation and sobriety— we have in our
possession a most powerful weapon against them. This weapon is Clause 1 of the
Congress resolution on insurrection.

The Unity Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party has recognised
that the immediate task of the movement is to wrest power from
the autocratic government. Whoever forgets about this immediate task, whoever
attempts to push it into the background, will infringe the will of the
Congress; and we shall fight all who are guilty of this in the sternest fashion.

I repeat: there is plenty of scope from the parliamentary group to the immediate
task of wresting power . Within these wide limits, the ideological
struggle can and must proceed without causing a split, without affecting the
unity of action of the proletariat.

And we call upon all Social-Democrats who do not want our Party to stray too far
to the right to join in this ideological struggle.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


[1] I have just received a copy of Karl Kautsky’s new pamphlet entitled The State Duma . His formulation of the question of the boycott and
that of the Mensheviks are as wide apart as heaven and earth. Our would-be
Social-Democrats, like Negorev in Nevskaya Gazeta , clumsily blurt
out: the boycott is anarchism! But Kautsky, after analysing the concrete
conditions, writes: “Under these conditions it is not surprising that the
majority of our Russian comrades regarded the Duma convened in this way as
nothing more than a most outrageous travesty of popular representation, and
decided to boycott it “It is not surprising that the majority of our
Russian comrades thought it more expedient to fight in order to wreck this
Duma and secure the convocation of a constituent assembly, than to take
part in the election campaign for the purpose of getting into this Duma.”

Oh, how we should like to have Axelrod’s platitudes about the benefits of
  parliamentarism and the harmfulness of anarchism published soon, as a parallel
  to Kautsky’s historically concrete appraisal!

By the way. This is what Kautsky says about the victory of the
  revolution in the same pamphlet: “The peasants and the proletariat will
  more and more vigorously and unceremoniously push the members of the Duma
  to the left [this is what Nevskaya Gazeta would contemptuously
  call “the crude exposure of the Cadets”], will weaken and paralyse their
  opponents more and more until they have utterly defeated them.” Thus the peasantry and the proletariat will defeat “them” that
  is, both the government and the liberal bourgeoisie. Poor Kautsky! He
  does not realise that only the bourgeoisie can make a bourgeois
  revolution. He is uttering a “Blanquist” heresy: the victory
  (“dictator ship”) of the proletariat and the peasantry.— Lenin

 | The End of the Congress | | | Material for Appraising the Work of the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. |

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------------------------------------------------------------
Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.
------------------------------------------------------------


A Letter to the St. Petersburg Workers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Appendix
~~~~~~~~


Material for Appraising the Work of the Unity Congress
of the R.S.D.L.P.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


To enable the reader, pending the publication of the minutes of the Congress, to
study the questions that were discussed at the Congress with the aid of the
records concerned, we append herewith the draft resolutions submitted to the
Congress by the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks respectively, together with the
texts of the resolutions adopted by the Congress. As we have already stated in
the pamphlet, only by studying this material can one gain a clear and precise
idea of the true significance of the ideological struggle at the Congress. We
also append the more important resolutions that appeared in Partiiniye
Izvestia , No. 2, and which were not discussed at the Congress, or not
brought up there; for all the delegates had these in mind during the debates
and sometimes quoted them, but unless one reads them, one cannot fully
understand the nature of the disagreements.


------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
------------------------------------------------------------


 | VIII. The Congress Summed Up | | |  |

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